Jean Rabe

Goblin Nation

RAGE OF BLOOD

It looked like a wolf, but it was the size of a mountain pony, stocky, and covered with coarse, black fur streaked with blood. Despite his keen hobgoblin senses, Direfang had not heard it approach. He’d been alerted only when it snarled as it loped toward him, inches-long fangs glistening from saliva and back legs propelling it off the loam and into him, the impact knocking his axe free and slamming his head against the hard ground. The beast pinned Direfang’s shoulders to the earth and sunk its teeth into his thick neck.

Its breath was as foul as stagnant water, and its body reeked of long dead and rotted things. The odors hit the hobgoblin like a pounding wave. Direfang fought for air and tried to shove his arms up to pitch the dread thing off him. But it was stronger and heavy, its nails digging into the hobgoblin’s chest as it clamped its jaws tighter. Direfang hadn’t had time to call out a warning to his companions, though he heard others’ warning cries as he struggled-shrill, angry, frightened hoots from the goblins who had been toiling with him. Some called for everyone to flee, others to join the fight; one shouted hoarsely that Direfang needed help. But no one came to the hobgoblin’s rescue.

From the snarls and howls rising around him, Direfang could tell there was more than that one overlarge wolf that he was finding impossible to dislodge.

“Not … die … this … way,” Direfang managed.

He reminded himself that he’d fought Dark Knights and ogres and survived an insidious plague, all of those opponents more formidable than that one creature. The muscles bunched in his arms as he wedged his hands farther under its chest. He gritted his teeth as the beast ripped a piece of his flesh free and its jaws shot toward his throat again.

“And … not … die … this … day!”

Direfang redoubled his efforts and pressed up again, finally moving the creature just enough so he could get out from under it and shove it away. He got to his knees as it came at him once more, teeth clacking and its deep, throaty growl intensifying. Direfang batted it back with both fists. The hobgoblin felt blood running down his neck and chest, warm and sticky and considerable-no doubt the reason he felt light-headed. He instinctively raised a hand to his wound as if to staunch the flow then stopped himself and used both hands to instead grab the relentless beast by its ruff.

The creature was incredibly vicious if not crazed. Direfang sensed madness about it-staring at its red eyes with no visible pupils fixed on him, lips flecked with foam; there was a constant rumbling in its chest as if it were a smelter being stoked.

“Bloodrager!” Direfang heard someone call. Grallik, he thought, as the voice did not belong to a goblin. “They are bloodragers!”

So the creature had a name and a seemingly fitting one. Direfang fell back on his haunches as the bloodrager drove forward and nearly knocked him prone. He barely managed to keep it at arm’s length.

“Not … this … day!” the hobgoblin repeated, twisting his fingers tighter into the fur and wrenching its head down and around. He was trying to snap the bloodrager’s neck, but that was proving elusive. He took a different approach, letting the creature come uncomfortably close and feeling its hot, fetid breath on his face as he prepared to use its momentum against it. Direfang got beneath the beast and pushed it up and over so it landed on its back. The hobgoblin jumped to his feet, fought against the dizziness, and prepared to meet its next charge.

In that instant, Direfang got a quick look at the chaos around him. At least a dozen bloodragers had descended on the goblins who had been working to clear a stand of trees. There’d been more than a hundred goblins there heartbeats before, but many had obviously fled. There was Grallik too. The half-elf wizard had his back to a dead tree and was gesturing at one of the largest bloodragers.

Direfang heard a whoosh of fire and knew it emanated from Grallik, but he looked away as his own foe drew all of his attention, its feet churning then leaving the ground as it leaped fiercely at him. The hobgoblin ducked and slammed his fists into the creature’s rib cage. The impact knocked the air from its lungs, and it dropped to the ground, shaking its head and trying to regain its balance. The hobgoblin didn’t give it the opportunity. In three steps he was on the bloodrager, hands finding and gripping its slimy muzzle.

Its stench seemed somehow stronger, competing with Grallik’s smell of fire, the singed flesh, and the hobgoblin’s leaking blood. Direfang fought to keep from retching. Sweat streamed into the hobgoblin’s eyes, making everything look fuzzy. He threw his head back and gasped for fresh air, all the while keeping a firm hold on the bloodrager.

“Fight the bloodragers! Don’t run!” Direfang hollered. “Stay and fight! Stay strong and win!”

“Stay and win!” shouted Knobnose, a potbellied young goblin who’d been trying to fight his way toward Direfang. He wielded a bent axe he’d been using to chop at a tree. “Win for Direfang!”

“Win for the Flamegrass clan!” cried an orange-skinned goblin.

“Win for Rockbridge!” bellowed a gray-furred goblin with a long, bent nose.

“Be fast! Be deadly!” became a chant that started with members of the Fishgatherer clan and spread to the rest.

“From the sides! From behind it!” Direfang managed to shout. “Stay away from the teeth!”

Then Direfang forced the cacophony to the back of his mind and with his waning strength managed to pry the bloodrager’s jaws open. The hobgoblin marveled at the muscles in the specimen and felt them ripple beneath his fingers. The creature shook wildly, and its teeth sliced at Direfang’s fingers. Despite the new pain, the hobgoblin held on tighter.

“Die … this … day … monster!” He opened the jaws wider still. “Die now!” One more effort and he broke the bloodrager’s jaws with a loud crack, sending it into even greater contortions. He drove his fists into the beast’s sides rhythmically, like a drummer setting a cadence. Even then it whipped its head back and forth furiously, its bottom jaw hanging grotesquely loose and a thick line of blood running over its lower lip. It twisted its neck over its shoulder, and its hellish red eyes locked onto the hobgoblin. Direfang kept pounding and felt its ribs snap.

“Fight close!” the hobgoblin commanded as he risked a glance around. “Fight together! Be fast!”

“Fast and deadly!” Knobnose shouted. “Fast and win!”

Direfang continued to snap orders at the goblins close enough to hear him. Only a few balked, hesitant to step near the bloodragers, and those were mainly goblins who had joined the band in only the past handful of days.

When the beast finally collapsed beneath Direfang, he continued to strike it with one fist, still feeling it feebly wriggle beneath him. He pressed his free hand hard against the jagged tear in his neck, blood still flowing over his lacerated fingers. There was no healer with their workforce, and so Direfang realized he very well could die that day.

There was another whoosh of flame then another. Screams and howls followed. Direfang glanced up from his motionless foe. A half dozen bloodragers lay dead, caught by Grallik’s bursts of magical fire and hacked up by the goblins who wielded axes.

The remaining bloodragers were being contested by goblins who continued to wail their shrill war cries. Goblin corpses were scattered across the loam. It was as gruesome a battlefield as Direfang had ever seen.

Growing weaker, Direfang awkwardly pushed off from the carcass and stood, holding his palm tighter against the wound on his neck. He felt flaps of skin and swore he could touch the muscle beneath.

He looked for his axe, spotted it, and grabbed it up with his free hand. Then, without hesitation, he clumsily charged at the closest bloodrager. It was snapping at a quartet of goblins. Direfang saw an opening and hurled his axe. It cleaved into the beast’s side and brought a shrill, piercing howl. The goblin foursome descended on the beast to finish it off, and Direfang stumbled toward the next bloodrager, a long, skinny one that was threatening Knobnose and his clan members.

A crackling noise pierced the din and stopped the hobgoblin, followed by a boom of thunder and the smell of something sharp and acrid. Then there was another loud crack, followed by a third and a fourth. Out of the corner of his eye, Direfang saw a thin bolt of lightning lance overhead and strike one of the bloodragers. A whoosh signaled another blast of fire from Grallik.

Mudwort was responsible for the lightning strikes; Direfang knew that without seeing the red-skinned goblin shaman. She must have heard the commotion from their nearby camp and come running-along with dozens and dozens of others. Suddenly the ground was covered with raging goblins and hobgoblins. Their battle cries rose deafeningly.

Direfang no longer tried to command the horde; they were frenzied and beyond listening, a sea of small, furious bodies swarming around trunks and over the remaining bloodragers. He sank to his knees and pressed both hands to his neck. He closed his eyes for just a moment. It would be so easy to give in to his pain, he thought. Just keep his eyes closed and pass from the bothersome world. His life was still flowing out over his fingertips. “So very easy,” he whispered.

But nothing had ever been easy for him, and he would fight for life if for no other reason than to stay with his army and lead it to its destiny-fulfilling his duty. Yet his fingers were so slick with blood, he had a hard time holding them in place.

“Fight,” he whispered. “Fight and live.”

“Yes, live. Be well, Foreman Direfang.”

The hobgoblin pried his eyes open; they were sticky with sweat and grit. A young human woman stood over him, pale hands shiny with magic.

“You are gravely wounded,” she said. “But you are not yet beyond my touch.”

Her name was Qel, and Direfang knew very little about her. She looked little more than a child, small and delicate with silvery-white hair that fell to her shoulders. She’d joined his army when they had stopped at Schallsea Island so the mystics could cure some of the goblins suffering from the plague.

Direfang was not fond of humans, but he knew the goblins had no healers among them, so he had accepted her presence. He had been magically healed before, by an Ergothian priest of Zeboim who had traveled with the goblins for a time. That magic was warm and soothing and powerful. But Qel’s vibrant touch felt much different.

A chill passed from his neck to his toes, bringing out goose bumps and causing him to tremble and his teeth to chatter. There was nothing soothing about her healing; he felt uncomfortable and suddenly itchy, like tiny insects were crawling across his skin, most of them centered on his neck. He was tempted to brush her hands away, not sure if he could trust her. But he sensed that without her ministrations he would die from loss of blood. So he endured the prickly, cold sensations for countless long minutes as the cacophony continued around him.

It seemed as if all the goblins were chattering, their conversations an irritating, indecipherable buzz. There was the faintest clicking sound of branches nudged by the wind and the single cry of some hunting bird. Then there was his heart, pounding loudly in his ears. All of the sounds stirred together caused his head to ache.

Then he felt Qel’s hands flutter down his arms and grasp his fingers. She squeezed them and made them feel as if they’d been thrust into an icy stream. She was healing them, he realized, but her ministrations hurt nearly as much as the wounds themselves.

“You need rest,” Qel said a moment later, stepping away. Her hands were covered with his blood; she bent and wiped them on the grass. “I’ve others to tend to.” She gave him a faint smile and retreated to the base of an oak that had been damaged by Mudwort’s lightning. Two injured goblins were propped against it.

Direfang waited a moment more before lumbering to his feet, the pain lessening. He looked away from the scattered bodies as he headed toward Mudwort. For the moment, he did not want to consider how many had died. He would learn the tally soon enough. Then the air would be filled with more fire and the pungent odor of fallen, burning goblins. Voices would be raised in memory of dead clansmen. The ritual of death and remembering would be repeated, as it had been so often, too often, on their journey to freedom.

Mudwort was sitting next to Grallik; both had their heads bowed, and their lips were moving as if they were conspiring. The mass of goblins whooped and danced victoriously around the bloodrager carcasses. The army would dine well that night.

“Foreman.” Grallik acknowledged Direfang’s approach. The wizard always referred to Direfang as Foreman, either as a measure of respect or simply because it had been the hobgoblin’s title when he slaved in the mine. Grallik had been his enemy then; while Direfang didn’t think of him as an enemy since the slave camp, well, Direfang still wasn’t sure what he was.

“Grallik, Mudwort.”

Mudwort did not look up.

The hobgoblin sat cross-legged in front of them, his back to the dancing throng and the goblin corpses. Direfang was still weak.

“Bloodragers, these things?” Direfang placed his big hands on his knees. He noticed that the cuts on his fingers had mended. The last of Qel’s magical chill suddenly vanished. She had done her job well. “Is this forest filled with these bloodragers?”

Grallik shook his head.

Direfang studied the half-elf wizard, as if the scars on the left side of the man’s face comprised a map. More scars ran down the man’s neck and the left side of his body from a fire long ago, the hobgoblin had heard. The wizard’s shirt concealed the worst of the horrible marks.

“No, Foreman. Bloodragers are a rare thing. I’d only ever spotted one during my youth, and though that was a long while ago, the image and the subsequent vivid tales I’ve heard made me recognize these creatures as the ’ragers.” He paused and looked around Direfang. “Bloodragers are the dark side of the woods, nature twisted by magic and fueled by something beyond this world.”

“Explain,” Direfang said.

Grallik sighed, a dry sound that melted into the clicking of thin branches directly above. “Dire wolves, Foreman. Bloodragers are dire wolves infected by some arcane disease, perhaps on purpose, perhaps a magical experiment gone awry. The latter is more likely, I think. Terrifying and thoroughly feral, they live only to kill. There are not thought to be many of them in the world. But … perhaps … that belief is incorrect.”

Direfang nodded. “There were many here, wizard. Far too many, in fact.” He paused, thinking. “Is the flesh …”

“Harmful? Diseased?” Grallik shrugged. “I’m certain the woman or the gnoll will have some enchantment floating around in their heads that can make the meat safe to eat. Pray that you cook it this time. I’ll not eat it raw. No more. I’m done with such fare, and I’ll …”

Direfang shut out the rest of the wizard’s words as he glanced over his shoulder, still avoiding looking at the goblin corpses. Some of the goblins had started skinning the bloodragers, with a reasonable amount of care, he noted. They were obviously trying to preserve the hides. A few months past, Direfang knew they would have simply hacked into the bodies for the choicest pieces of meat and left everything else to rot with no thought of the future. His followers were finally thinking differently, planning ahead, and that was a good thing, he thought.

Qel tended a fallen hobgoblin. A few yards beyond her a creature busied itself-one that Direfang considered even more hideous than his scarred and battered self. Appearing a little taller than a hobgoblin, it had green-gray skin covered with thin fur and a head that resembled a hyena’s. A reddish mane sprouted from the top of its head and ran down its neck. Grallik had called it a gnoll, and it had introduced itself as Orvago.

Like Qel, the gnoll came from the Citadel of Light on Schallsea Island and had volunteered to accompany the goblins to the Qualinesti Forest. And, also like Qel, the gnoll was a healer, though not of the same cloth. “One of Scanion’s druids from the Animism Lyceum,” Qel had explained to Direfang. The words meant nothing to the hobgoblin. The only thing that mattered was that the hideous gnoll was useful and could tend the injured.

Direfang slowly stood and locked eyes with the gnoll. “The flesh of the bloodragers must be made safe, understand?” the hobgoblin said as he neared. “The carcasses of these things will be devoured before sunset. No goblins should get sick from eating the meat.”

Without waiting for a reply, the hobgoblin turned and sought an old goblin named Rockhide, whose mind was sharp but his limbs feeble and covered with ugly, brown age spots.

“Watch the feast,” Direfang told him.

The old goblin’s chest swelled as he realized Direfang was giving him something important to do.

“Make sure the bloodrager bones are collected for tools.”

Rockhide nodded. “Collected and cleaned.”

“Make sure the hides are well scraped.”

“Tan the hides,” Rockhide said. “Use the hides.”

Direfang trembled and planted his feet farther apart to steady himself. Qel had indeed mended his gashes, but she could not replace the blood he’d lost. That would take time. He still felt weak.

“And watch the wizard.”

Rockhide twisted his head until he spotted Grallik next to Mudwort. When the old goblin turned back, Direfang was gone.

DIREFANG’S MONUMENT

Twice the height of the goblins in his ragtag army, Direfang presented an imposing figure as he strode around. His dark gray hide was covered with thick, bristly hair, save for bare patches on his arms and chest that bore wide scars he’d gained from toiling in the mines.

It hadn’t been very long since he’d been a slave for the Dark Knights in Steel Town-a month or two maybe, but time blurred in his mind like the indistinct forms of the trees wrapped in the early morning fog. Then the earthquakes had come and collapsed the mines, the volcanoes had erupted, and in the midst of all the terror and devastation, he’d fled with the other goblin and hobgoblin slaves. He’d led them all away from that hellish place and brought them to where they were. And then the bloodragers had come …

The journey was a road, and once he’d started down it, he found that he could not turn back. His destiny was set; he hoped he’d made the right decision regarding the forest.

Neraka was blessedly so very far away.

“Free,” he whispered. “Free finally.”

Most of them had arrived on ships that had been bought with accidental gains and subsequently released to their captains.

He wondered if, after the previous day’s slaughter, he should have instead ordered the captains to sail them all to Northern Ergoth. The old goblin nation of Sikk’et Hul was there. Life might have been uncomplicated on that big island, no bloodragers to worry about, and no building from scratch.

His goblin army could have been absorbed by Sikk’et Hul.

Made a part of something else.

It would have been easier, but it wouldn’t have been their own, would it? It would have been wrong, he felt.

Instead he’d chosen a different road to take his life down, and there was no turning back. A new goblin nation was his goal.

Perhaps that was why he’d never mentioned to the others the possibility of traveling to Sikk’et Hul as they wended their way south through the mountains, leaving what remained of Steel Town. He didn’t want to go to Sikk’et Hul. He wanted to go somewhere and start afresh.

Too, Mudwort had insisted on traveling to that forest, and he’d always trusted her counsel. There was some selfish reason she’d wanted to go there, he suspected, but he didn’t know what that was, and for the moment he didn’t care. The massive woods, once claimed by the elves before the dragon overlord Beryl came, were temperate and filled with food. He found them pleasing.

It had been the right road.

And if there were no more bloodragers, perhaps he would finally find a safe road too.

Direfang absently rubbed his calloused palms together, the sound dry. The hobgoblin followed a narrow, overgrown game trail, only pieces of which were visible. He stared at the tendrils of fog curling around his legs, barely registering the coolness. The fog reminded him of the smoke that had rolled off the funeral pyre the day before; he swore he could still smell the acrid stench of the burning goblin corpses and see their small limbs blackening. His mouth was suddenly parched and his tongue thick. His feet crunched over twigs and clumps of dirt, and that made him think of goblin teeth and their thin, tiny bones that had been scattered and broken when the ashes had cooled.

Nothing had been left intact or touching.

The spirits could not return to their moldering bodies trapped in the earth; they would instead be forced to find the wombs of pregnant goblins and be born again into what they hoped would be a better world.

Direfang rambled around, heading nowhere in particular, looking over his motley charges. He’d become accustomed to early-morning walks alone as the goblins were rousing, and he’d taken the trail the day before at dawn and so was familiar with it. He avoided the goblins’ friendly chatter and mild arguments that way, the posturing of the various clans. He’d return shortly, after they’d had time to eat and stretch and finish their arguments. Then he would assign tasks and start work.

There was so much to do.

The ground where they’d been chopping down trees he’d selected as the site for their city. It was near water, the land was flat, and the trunks of the trees were thin enough that they could be felled without too much trouble. But it would not do anymore, and they would have to find another place. Too much blood had been spilled there. The Flamegrass clan, several of the hobgoblins, and the Fishgatherers were superstitious about living on blood-soaked ground-particularly when the blood came from their relatives. Too many worried that more bloodragers would come to the spot and kill again. Nothing but bad omens circled that ground, Thya said after the corpse-burning.

Direfang admitted to a few superstitions too, so he had told them all late that night that a better place would be found and that they would start looking in earnest the very next day. Always moving on, moving on, he sighed gloomily.

Birds chirped musically, but he couldn’t see them through the fog. There was a faint breeze; it gently nudged the leaves overhead but didn’t make it down as far as the ground.

He still ached from the fight with the bloodragers, his neck still throbbed, though not so bad as before. True, Qel had saved his life, but he did not consider her as fine a healer as the Ergothian priest who’d once accompanied them. She was young, Direfang thought, and therefore lacked the Ergothian’s experience. And perhaps her god was not as powerful.

Direfang spit and clenched his fists. He growled deep in his throat and did not realize the sound caused the birds to quiet. He recognized the gods of the world, but he did not believe in them, he reflected. None of the goblins in his army believed. The gods had done nothing to help goblinkind.

Lost in his musings, Direfang unknowingly wandered off the familiar game trail. The trunks were closer together, and in spots he had to squeeze through clumps of birches. The fog hid exposed roots, and the hobgoblin stumbled here and there, catching himself on low-hanging branches.

Direfang usually liked the smell of the forest, from the flowers that hung on vines high in the canopy to the rotting wood pieces and fallen leaves on the floor. But he had a difficult time smelling any of it that morning, as his own stench overpowered everything else; it was a strong, redolent mix of sweat and dirt but mostly of caked, dried blood that was heavy under his nails and matted in his fur. He scratched at some of the scabs on his fingers then stopped himself; he didn’t want to open the wounds that Qel had healed.

He would find a stream and wash himself, drink his fill, and return to the goblins to start the day’s tasks. There must be water nearby, as he heard faint gurgling. Had he not stunk so badly, he could have sniffed his way to it.

The fog had thinned to a fine, lacy mist by the time he found an egg-shaped pond as cerulean as a clear sky and dotted with lily pads and rosy pink blooms that lay flat on the surface. It was fed by a small stream no wider than his thigh. He sat at the edge of the pond and cupped his hands to take a drink; then he froze. On the other side, still as a rock, stood a fawn with wide eyes and large, perfect ears.

“Beautiful,” Direfang murmured.

He stared at the creature for long minutes, holding his breath and remaining as still as the forest creature.

Finally it blinked and dipped its muzzle for a drink, deciding the hobgoblin was no threat. Direfang remained motionless, studying the delicate animal. There’d been no deer around Steel Town, and Direfang had not seen one since his youth. He’d never seen one so young and fragile-looking.

The fawn drank deep and began nibbling on the bark of a sapling that grew at the pond’s edge.

Direfang rose slowly and slipped quietly around the pond. He brushed against a spreading fern, making a shushing sound that caused the fawn to glance up. His approach noted, the fawn resumed nibbling.

“Beautiful, beautiful creature,” Direfang murmured again. He stopped when he was a few yards away, not wanting it to bolt in fear. The fog was all but gone, and he could see the fawn’s tapered legs, its front two, splayed wide, had white markings that looked like socks. Its sand brown back was dusted with spots, like large snowflakes that had come to rest and not been permitted to melt. Its nose was shiny, as dark as the round, unblinking eyes that again took in Direfang.

“Curious, eh?” Direfang edged his foot forward. He fully expected the fawn to run, for it appeared nervous. “Stay,” he whispered fervently. “Please stay. Do not run.” He took another step then another. He wanted Mudwort to see the creature, or Rockhide or Graytoes, or anyone who might appreciate its beauty. “Do not run.”

He tentatively stretched a hand toward the fawn and watched its nose twitch, trying to take in all the scents of the hobgoblin. A little farther and Direfang’s fingers were a forearm’s length from the top of its head. Direfang knew it would feel pleasing to his touch.

A little farther.

One more step.

The hobgoblin’s stomach softly rumbled. He’d not shared in the bloodragers the previous day, and he’d not eaten anything yet that morning. The fawn would taste good and would be more than enough to fill his empty belly.

“Do not run, beautiful creature.”

A little closer and the hobgoblin stepped on a thick twig, his weight snapping it and spooking the fawn. It sprang away, but Direfang was just as fast, arm shooting out, fingers closing on the fawn’s neck.

He hoisted the fawn, grimacing when its small, flailing hooves repeatedly struck him. It made a mewling sound like a goblin baby.

“Sweet meat,” he said. “Soft skin.” He would give the hide to Graytoes for her baby.

With his free hand he reached for the axe tucked into his belt. “Die fast and painless.”

It mewled more shrilly, and its hooves churned faster. He held it out farther so it could not touch him.

“For food and for Graytoes’ Umay.” Direfang brought the axe up and behind his shoulder. One stroke would do it.

He saw his face reflected in the wide, black eyes and saw foam fleck along its mouth. He hesitated then dropped the axe.

“Too beautiful.” He lowered the fawn to the ground and released it. In its panic to escape, it nearly tangled itself in the reeds at the pond’s edge. But a moment more and it was clumsily running away, vaulting over a wide patch of saw grass and losing itself behind a clump of birches, mewling the whole way.

Direfang waded into the pond until he was up to his hips. After a moment he sat, feeling the cold water swirl around his shoulders. He tipped his head back and watched a V of birds pass overhead.

He stayed that way for longer than he had intended. When he emerged, he retrieved his axe and found the tracks he’d left on his way there. The fog gone, the exposed roots and fallen limbs were easy to navigate.

Direfang briefly considered bringing the goblins that way, as he wanted to establish a village near a body of water. But the pond and the stream wouldn’t be enough for his growing throng-more goblins had arrived from the dwarf mountains only two days past. He had sent groups of scouts out at dawn to the south and west to look for a considerable water source. He would send more in a few minutes when he returned to the camp.

The hobgoblin was nearly back to the game trail when he spotted a piece of worked stone near the trunk of an old willow. The odd, twisting spire reached as high as his chest, and he wondered why he hadn’t noticed it on his trek to the pond.

“The fog,” he said, realizing that must have cloaked it.

He padded toward the stone spire, careful to step over a large sticker bush.

The piece looked sculpted or carved from a type of stone he’d not seen before, and he’d seen plenty in the Steel Town mines and in the mountains they’d traipsed through to make their escape. It was a pink and gray color, both at the same time, but not granite, which also had those combinations, and it had clear crystals embedded in it he was certain would sparkle if the sunlight could reach through the willow leaves to touch it.

The base was as wide around as his thigh, the top a point no thicker than his finger. It was smooth-he confirmed that with a touch-and felt cool. He ran his hands along the surface, finding carvings on one side. Direfang had to stoop to see them.

“Words,” he pronounced, but none he could read. “Elven words.” That was a guess, seeing as how the woods once belonged to them. The letters, if that’s what they were, looked elegant and thin, like an elf would make, Direfang thought. He stared for several minutes, trying to commit them to memory and discovering that when he closed his eyes, he couldn’t picture any of them.

“Maybe a grave.” In Steel Town the Dark Knights buried their dead, setting up stones as memorials for the more important men. Maybe the elves did the same, and the artful spire was a monument of some sort that marked the remains of someone significant.

Direfang shrugged. If it was a grave, he didn’t have qualms about disturbing it. Bodies should not be buried, he believed firmly. They should be burned and scattered, nothing touching.

He squatted and dug around the base, carefully as his fingers still ached a little from the cuts he’d suffered. There wasn’t much of the stone beneath the ground, and after a little more digging, he was able to tip it over. At the bottom of the hole left behind were three rocks each the size of a goblin’s fist, smooth, as if they’d been worn for ages in a river, and covered in more of the graceful, thin letters. Each rock was a different color: rose like the shade in the small spire; a green so pale it was practically white and made the marks the most difficult to see; and bright blue, a most unnatural color for a rock.

Direfang plucked the blue one out first. It was at the same time brighter and lighter than the blue gemstones Mudwort had found in the dwarven village they’d passed through weeks before. Yet it was not the same type of stone as Mudwort’s, and it felt cool, even when he pressed it into his palm. Mudwort’s gemstones warmed to the touch, he knew. Odd, too, that there wasn’t a speck of dirt on the stones, nor was dirt embedded in the depressions where the letters had been carved into them, despite the stones having been buried for … certainly a long time.

Direfang picked up the other two stones and thrust all of them in the pocket of his tunic. He circled the willow, avoiding the thorny bushes that grew in profusion there, looking for more of the colorful, shiny stones. He widened his circle, coming upon the ruined foundation of a small building. A few of the foundation rocks remaining were still held together by mortar, like some of the buildings in Steel Town had been constructed. He traced their outline, brushing aside ferns and bushes and scratching the earth here and there, hoping he might find …

“Find what?” Direfang said. “Find nothing.” He wondered if he was just looking for an excuse to not return to the throng of goblins and start the day’s work. Was he becoming an old lazybones?

Still he persisted in his search, finally managing to unearth a few trinkets: a small, silver spoon with delicate scrollwork on the handle; a glazed earthenware mug that had survived whatever catastrophe had befallen the place; and a dozen pearls on a thin, rotted cord. He put the pearls and the spoon in his pocket. The mug was too large, and he almost left it behind. But it was a bit of curious treasure, and he thought he might find a use for it, so he untied his belt, ran the handle through it, and retied it.

Direfang ranged a little farther, looking for more ruins and spire stones. The undergrowth was thick, but he shuffled through it in a steady rhythm that coordinated with the clicking of a big, black bird perched on a branch overhead. He thought he might get lucky twice and stub his toes on another foundation and find more treasures. Where the sun cut through a lattice of branches, the thin beams looked like spun glass, a haze of gnats flitting through them. The gnats swarmed around Direfang too, but they were too trivial a nuisance to concern him.

Eventually he gave up searching, guessing that perhaps there’d been only the one building, the residence of some peculiar elf hermit who dined with fine silver and drank from a glazed mug. After one more sweep around the lone foundation, he returned to ogle the mysterious spire and dig just a little more in the dirt.

After a while he stood and shrugged. If it was a monument that marked a grave, it marked a deep one, and the hobgoblin had no desire to waste more time digging for bug-riddled elf bones.

A part of Direfang was irritated that he’d already spent so much time away from his goblin charges, curious about the polished rock spire and an old building foundation. It wasn’t like him to dally so long when there was work to be done, even though he did covet snatches of solitude and was a curious sort of fellow.

“Late,” he decided. “Terribly late getting back.”

He continued to stare at the sculpted stone spire. There was no dirt on its base, even the part of it that had been thrust into the ground. It was as if nothing could stick to it.

He had a thought. Was it magic?

If so, he should leave it there, maybe settle it back in its hole, maybe bring Mudwort to look at it and hear her opinion. The goblin shaman seemed to understand mysterious things of the earth. Maybe she could cast a spell and talk to it.

But what if he couldn’t find that place again, as it wasn’t on the game trail? And he might not have time to come back that way, as he ought to get busy moving the goblins farther away to a good water supply where the land had not been soaked with their kinsmen’s blood. So he bent and wrapped his fingers around the narrow part, hoisting it upright again.

Direfang grabbed the bottom with his free hand, sucked in a breath, and picked it up, holding it in front of himself as if it were a precious log he was carrying back to stoke a funeral pyre for dead goblins.

The spire was heavy, though not so heavy as he expected. Direfang was strong and somehow managed it. He used to tote sacks of ore from the mines in Neraka and told himself it was not as heavy as a big sack of rocks. Yet he struggled under it as he found his way back to the game trail, scratching his ankles and shredding the cuffs of his pants in the sticky bushes. It wouldn’t have been so onerous a task if he had not lost so much blood. He still didn’t feel as strong as usual.

Although Direfang couldn’t say why he wanted the spire, he knew he didn’t want to leave it behind. He had to set it down and rest briefly several times before he finally reached the spot where most of the goblins had been camped.

There’d been thousands of them when he’d left. Gaping, he saw that there was only one: a thin-framed, yellow-skinned female clutching a bundle to her chest.

It was Graytoes and her baby-a dwarf infant she’d taken from the village they’d passed through.

“Direfang!” she whooped when she spotted him.

He shuffled toward her, eyes cutting left and right in search of more goblins. He saw tamped-down grass and other evidence of their passing, and beyond Graytoes, in the gaps between large oaks, were the crude frames where the bloodrager hides were being tanned. He could smell the pong of the mixture Orvago had made and spread on the skins.

Some five thousand goblins had left the shore and come inland to build a nation, where still more had joined them. Many of the clans had camped a little distance away from the main group, and Direfang squinted and cupped his hand over his eyes, hoping to spot smoke spirals from cook fires.

“Nothing,” he said, eyeing Graytoes.

“Direfang was not lost,” Graytoes said happily, rising to meet him, face beaming when she glanced first at him then at her baby, Umay, who had just made a charming cooing sound. “Mudwort said Direfang wasn’t lost. Mudwort was right. Mudwort talked to the earth and told the clans that Direfang was swimming and getting rid of the blood-stink. Late, not lost.”

Direfang opened his mouth, but Graytoes kept babbling.

“Mudwort told the clans Direfang would come back when the blood-stink was gone. That another home site should be found, that more trees should be cut and-”

“Where is-”

“Mudwort said Direfang should have some alone time. Trees should be cut, Mudwort said, and water found. Mudwort said Direfang would want these things done. Rockhide and Bug-biter, Bentclaw, and Thya all agreed.”

“Where is-?”

“Mudwort said Direfang is selfless and doesn’t take enough alone time. Mudwort said-”

Direfang snarled and set the spire down. Graytoes stared at it, as if she’d not noticed him carrying it before.

“Oh! A big rock, tall and pretty, Direfang found. Mudwort did not say that Direfang had found a big, pretty rock. Said Direfang was getting rid of the blood-stink.” She sniffed the air. “Direfang got rid of the blood-stink and found a big rock. What is-?”

“Stop chattering for a minute! Where did Mudwort go? Where did all of the clans go?” Direfang’s words were a sustained growl.

Graytoes continued to stare at the spire, holding Umay against her with one arm and snaking out the other to touch the stone with her thumb. “Yes, pretty,” she said. “That is a very pretty rock, Direfang.”

“Graytoes!”

“Thya and Rockhide took some of the clans past the nut trees.” Graytoes’s eyes were still riveted on the stone, however. “Thya and Rockhide. Mudwort went too, after a while, and Grallik and Qel and …” She wrinkled her face, searching for a word. “And Qel’s hairy friend. Mudwort and Thya said to wait for Direfang. That Direfang was not lost. Just late. Said to wait for Direfang. Knobnose is cutting down trees with the Fishgatherers. Bug-biter too. Somewhere cutting down trees.”

Direfang raised his gaze to the scattering of nut trees at the far side of the tanning hides, staring off. “Mudwort shouldn’t have left Graytoes alone,” he said irritably. “Mudwort should know better.” He clenched his hands, the nails digging into his palms. Mainly he felt angry at himself. He fished in his pocket for the silver spoon and thrust it at Graytoes.

“For Umay!” she squealed with delight. “Where did Direfang find such a pretty, shiny thing? Where did-?”

He cut her off with a glance. “Move,” he said.

Direfang took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the pleasant smell of the tamped-down grass, the foul smell of the tanning hides, and the scents of Umay and Graytoes. Then he picked up the spire and started south. Thousands of goblins left a trail that was easy to follow. They moved slowly without him too. They wouldn’t be far ahead.

Graytoes tucked the spoon inside Umay’s blanket and hurried to catch up.

THERE WILL BE A CITY

Well more than a week later, as the sun just started to set, Direfang was digging a hole on a bluff under the shade of a honey locust. When he was done, he placed into the hole the three egg-shaped stones that he’d been carrying in his pocket.

He couldn’t recall if they’d been touching when he unearthed them near the ruined foundation back near the camp they’d vacated, though for some reason he thought they should. So he rested the narrow ends against each other, fingers lingering on the pretty blue one, and turning them so the carved letters faced up.

He was aware that the gnoll Orvago was watching him closely. Grallik, too, was interested, though the wizard stayed farther away-thinking, perhaps, that Direfang had not noticed him.

Direfang had determinedly lugged the spire all that way, despite urgings from Thya and Knobnose that he drop the heavy load. They saw nothing particularly special about the rock spire and thought it silly to carry such a burden so far. Hundreds of goblins had come over to look at it or touch it during the past few days, but only a handful showed anything more than a passing curiosity in the big rock. Most wondered whether Direfang had lost his wits, dragging around such a worthless item.

“Just a rock,” the hobgoblin Sully pronounced, those around him agreeing. However, Sully had carried it occasionally for Direfang when the hobgoblin had looked a little fatigued. “Carved, pretty, but just a rock. A big one.”

Direfang had not argued with Sully or the others; they could well be right. But he was determined to keep it nonetheless.

“Magic in it maybe, Direfang,” Mudwort said thoughtfully. She hovered next to him and watched as he placed the base of the spire on top of the three stones and filled dirt around it as an anchor. “Magic probably.” She’d also told him that a week past when he’d asked her to examine it. But even then she couldn’t tell him the function of the spire’s possible magic. “Might be useful. Might not. Might have only marked the grave of a dead elf.”

Direfang had thought Mudwort would be wholly fascinated by the stone, but she seemed preoccupied with something else, humoring him by paying some attention to him at odd times like then.

“Might be a bad thing, Direfang. Maybe it should have stayed where it was found.”

He couldn’t tell her why he felt compelled to bring it along-other than that he’d decided he wanted it. Direfang rarely wanted anything tangible. The mug he had unearthed he’d already given to Sully.

“It marks here the spot of the first city of the new nation, this spire.” He brushed his palms against his trouser legs as he spoke. He stood back to admire it. “A monument to goblins.”

“There is no city here, Direfang. And that’s not a monument to anything.” Mudwort traced the symbols in the spire with a thumb. “Just dirt and trees and many, many goblins here. Goblins cutting down some of the trees.”

In the silence that settled between them, he heard the chopping sounds of goblins toiling. He hoped they could get a few hours of work in before they settled in for the night. Goblins had keen senses and could see well even when the light left the sky, but he knew he could not push them too hard.

Some five thousand goblins were massed in the area, all working, all under his command. He couldn’t see them all, as the ground was not flat, rising into ridges like thick wrinkles on a boar’s neck. The gullylike depressions hid a good many from his view. But he could hear the horde, thrashing through bushes and chattering, some snoring, and the younglings playing.

“You are wrong. There will be a city here, Mudwort,” the hobgoblin returned as he rolled his shoulders to work out a sore spot. “And after it is finished, then it will be named.”

She made a snorting sound and picked something out of her teeth. “Perhaps it will be called Rock Town,” Mudwort mused. “Named after Direfang’s maybe useful spire. Maybe Direfang’s Bad Rock.”

Irritated, he padded away from her and stood at the edge of the bluff, staring down a slope covered with trillium and moss roses to a meandering river that looked earth-brown in the growing shadows. Widely spaced maples grew along his side of the bank, tall ones with thick trunks whose roots reached out into the water like blackened, thirsty snakes. The trees on the opposite side were much smaller, mostly firs as far as he could tell, as if the river marked a line between two different lands. Perhaps a fire had ravaged the other side some decades before, he reflected, the river stopping the flames from touching the other part of the forest and keeping the old hardwoods safe.

There were also willow trees on the side where the goblins worked, though not many of them. Two were massive, their canopies like giant mushroom caps that sheltered secrets beneath them. Mostly there were oaks. Farther west along the river were cattails, and a handful of young goblins not yet assigned work were busy searching through them looking for tasty insects and crayfish. Near them, a broad-faced youngling with yellow skin had become tangled in hyacinth vines and was calling for help. The crayfish hunters watched and cackled until he pulled himself free.

Groups of scouts had found several likely places for the city. Direfang had picked that particular spot from among the candidates because the river was sluggish there and not terribly wide. That made it safer as far as he was concerned; most of the goblins could not swim. The river would provide adequate water, perhaps an abundance of fish, and there were plenty of large trees for shade. Too many trees, really, and that made it even more ideal, according to the gnoll druid. Direfang heard a persistent thuck sound-members of the Boarhunters clan chopping down trees the gnoll had marked. Some of the land would have to be cleared for goblin homes.

Mostly, Direfang picked that place because so many of the goblins were impatient to choose and begin to build. He feared too much delay might cause the horde to splinter with some of the smaller, younger clans drifting away. He wanted to keep them all together, for safety and strength.

“This will be a good home,” he said to himself.

Direfang could recall so very little of where he lived in his youth. The strongest memories came from Steel Town, perhaps because they were such awful ones. He idly raised a hand and traced a scar on his breastbone, remembering exactly when and where he’d gotten it-three years past, deep in one of the Dark Knight tunnels. He’d been overseeing a crew of new slaves, one of them a goblin with sharply filed teeth and veins so thick on his arms they looked like night crawlers oozing up from the earth. The goblin’s mind was sour, and at one point he turned suddenly and took a pickaxe to Direfang rather than to a nearby wall laced with ore. The goblin swung the axe over and over, striking Direfang’s chest and side before his fellows subdued him. Light had exploded behind Direfang’s eyes that day, with white and red shards that danced in dizzying patterns in front of his fingers as they dripped scarlet with his own blood.

Direfang shook off the memory. Most of his scars had been caused by the Dark Knights, and those times brought far worse memories than the day with Nkunda … he’d only just then recalled the maddened goblin’s name. He’d actually forgiven Nkunda for the wild transgression and did not report the incident to the knights. That day he’d watched the anger melt from Nkunda’s eyes, along with any spark of spirit. When a knight asked Direfang about his wounds, he said merely there had been an accident in the deep tunnel, that he’d tripped and fell on something sharp. Nkunda was with his mass of followers; Direfang spotted him working with the Fishgatherer clan to fashion nets from vines. He’d not spoken to Direfang since the incident three years past. Direfang wondered if Nkunda spoke to anyone.

“Magic, certainly, this rock is.” Mudwort had been saying something else, but Direfang had been too preoccupied to catch her words. “But maybe foul magic, this rock. Hear? Maybe Direfang should not have planted this spire here. Maybe it will bring bad fortune to Rock Town. Worse than the bloodragers.”

He kept his back to her. None had been able to decipher the writing on the stone-Orvago, Qel, and Grallik had spent hours studying it when the army stopped to rest. It was not of a language any of them knew, or so they claimed. None of the goblins and hobgoblins could read, though, save Direfang, who had mastered that skill by studying over the shoulders of Dark Knights during his years as a slave. There was a big crate of books higher on the bluff, among the supplies the goblins had transported on the ships with them. Perhaps one of the books might hold a key to the spire. Such research would have to wait. The rock was not important anyway, Direfang thought. It was just something he wanted to bring along and plant there; he couldn’t say why.

“It is not foul magic, Mudwort,” Direfang said finally. “Grallik would have wanted it left behind if it was foul.”

She scowled, her disapproval lost on him. “Grallik is not so powerful a wizard that-”

“Not so powerful as Mudwort?”

Without waiting for her reply, Direfang walked parallel to the bluff’s edge away from Mudwort and toward the youngling who had scrambled loose from the hyacinths.

The Boarhunters chopped down trees oddly, Direfang thought. He stood with his back to the river, watching eight of them attack an oak. The Boarhunters were marked by their coloration, a hazy gray that was black in places, the shade of wood left behind after a fire just died. Their voices were edged with a coarseness the hobgoblin had noticed in some of the men in Steel Town-the ones who often smoked pipes and frequented the lone tavern. The Boarhunters had joined his army shortly after Direfang had come ashore in the forest. They were among the many who had answered Mudwort’s call.

Their leader went by the name of Cari, though Direfang had heard a few clansmen call her Evania, which Grallik said was an Elvish word meaning young warrior. She was young, Direfang could tell that by her features, and though many in her clan were easily twice her age, they clearly respected her and followed her lead. She intrigued him.

She was more than forty feet off the ground near the top of the tree, her mate, a burly goblin named Keth, calling up to her from a lower branch. Two other goblins were also in the tree, the other four ringing the trunk. Each bore an axe or a heavy-bladed knife that was sharp on only one side and looked unwieldy.

As Direfang watched, Cari looped a rope around her waist and tied it to the trunk. Keth did the same, but the other two goblins were not so high up and were apparently unconcerned they might fall.

As Cari chopped at the uppermost branch, Direfang wondered what she had done to win dominance in the clan. Inheritance rights were uncommon among goblins, though one ailing leader might name a successor who had been particularly loyal. Usually leadership was tied to some great feat; Direfang was the army’s leader because he had led them from Steel Town and won their freedom from the Dark Knights. Thya led her clan because she was a shaman, the rest of her fellows in awe of her abilities and wisdom. Darkeyes was the new leader of the Flamegrass clan because he saved a youngling from drowning in the surf shortly after they’d arrived at the forest’s edge. The previous Flamegrass clan leader died of the plague that had threatened all of them.

Cari sawed at the uppermost branches on the opposite side of the trunk where Keth worked. As the branches fell to the ground, the quartet at the bottom pulled them away. A distance from the tree, younglings stripped the twigs and leaves off. Sully carted the branches off to a growing pile.

Direfang noted that as Cari and Keth moved lower on the trunk, they skittered out on thicker branches, cutting them off in pieces. Only once did Cari have to grab the rope when she slipped. Otherwise, she had appeared agile as a squirrel. Direfang decided he would ask how she gained the leadership of her clan during a rest period.

Keth was more daring, reaching out farther and chopping with an erratic motion that threatened to cut off one of his own limbs. Direfang silently cursed himself when he caught himself wishing that Keth would fall; after all, he’d caught the long-armed goblin urinating on his spire shortly before it had been planted on the bluff.

The two goblins below Cari and Keth were not as fast, but they were cutting at thicker limbs that had created a latticework that had to be pulled apart.

The Boarhunters made the work look easy; they obviously had cut down many, many trees before. There was a cadence to their chopping that the other workers hadn’t yet mastered, and there was little talk between them. But Direfang knew it was hard work; the veins were bulging on Keth’s arms, the sweat beading up on all of them, the ragged breathing of the two on the lowest limbs attesting to their exertions.

The task of building a city was an onerous one, and it would take no small amount of days. Could he keep them all focused on the goal ahead?

“Silly all of this.” Knobnose poked at Direfang’s arm. “Cutting down good trees. Killing good trees. Silly business.” The potbellied goblin crossed his arms and glowered at the Boarhunters. His breathing came quickly, and Direfang knew he had been working hard too. “Chop. Chop. Chop. At this all afternoon and night, eh? And then tomorrow and tomorrow. Direfang will have all the clans chop. Chop. Chop. Chop.” He made a sputtering noise that caused his lips to wiggle.

“Knobnose does not have to be part of this city,” Direfang returned.

The goblin kicked at a clump of dirt and spun, heading toward Sully and grumbling that he would rather be gathering food than doing such silly chopping. A moment later he could be spotted helping the hobgoblin pull small branches into a pile.

Direfang studied Cari and Keth a few moments more then tromped over to an oak Orvago had marked. No one worked there, so Direfang set to chopping himself, relishing the relative solitude while letting the others see his good example. The hobgoblin had made it clear even in Steel Town that he would not ask any of the others to do something he would not do himself.

It was a thick tree. He knew it would take some time to cut it down. He made his first chop about a foot above the ground; shards of the bark flew. After a half dozen more chops, he had company.

The gnoll cleared his throat to attract Direfang’s attention. Direfang took another chop at the tree before turning to face Orvago. They were near the same height, but the gnoll’s hyena-shaped head was larger. He smelled of things Direfang could not name and found vaguely unpleasant.

“Dependable and strong you are, Foreman Direfang. You are determined to help your people, and for that I admire you.” The gnoll cocked his head. The breeze stirred the reddish ruff that ran down his neck. “But you do not know how to correctly cut down trees.”

Direfang opened his mouth to dispute that assertion and put the gnoll in his place, but Orvago continued stoically.

“Respect nature and respect its power, Foreman Direfang. I showed your kinsmen three days past how to approach this task, but you were not paying attention then. I showed more of them this afternoon, but you were elsewhere.”

Direfang turned back to the tree and gave it another vigorous chop, stronger in his ire, more wood chips splintering.

“Do not be stubborn. Let me teach you, Foreman Direfang.”

Another chop then another and another, each more vehement.

“Let me teach you before you kill some of your kinsmen or yourself with your ignorance.”

LESSONS AND LOSS

Direfang stopped in midswing, a soft growl rumbling in his throat. The gnoll druid had gone too far. “Ignorant? How dare-”

“If this tree fell the wrong way, Foreman Direfang, it could easily smash you.” The gnoll padded to the trunk, touching the bark almost reverently. He closed his eyes and whispered in a language Direfang had not heard before. “This oak is powerful,” he said in the common tongue. “More powerful than you or I.”

Grallik had explained to Direfang what a druid was: a priest who worshiped nature above Krynn’s gods. Grallik thought druids were typically humans or elves, and so figured there was a story behind Orvago’s calling. Too, he said he was surprised Orvago did not protest cutting down trees to build goblin homes.

“Druids regard trees as sacred,” the wizard had explained.

Direfang simply considered trees useful, but sometimes it was useful to cut them down, time-consuming and tiring too.

“These trees that I’ve marked for destruction,” Orvago said, his fingers fairly dancing over the bark, “will by their absence make this part of the woods healthier. Trees grow poorly if there are too many on a stretch of ground, as there is here. There is too much competition for the water that soaks into the earth and all the nutrients held there. The remaining stands will be stronger and more resistant to fire sparked by lightning. Across the river, the woods were devastated a while ago.”

Direfang gritted his teeth; he’d deduced that much when he saw the small pines on the other side of the river.

“But if you do not cut them down properly, there will be-”

The hobgoblin snarled, ending that part of the lecture. He gestured with his axe. “What is there to teach? An axe and a strong arm-”

“Is not enough.” The gnoll almost reluctantly backed away from the tree. “You must determine how fast the tree will fall, Foreman Direfang. And the path it will take to the ground. If this tree falls here”-the gnoll pointed north-“you will see there is a clear path for the trunk in this direction. No other trees will be injured when this falls, and wood from this oak will not be terribly damaged. Nor are there goblins there to be squashed by its plummeting weight.”

Direfang heard the groan of wood and spun to see the oak the Boarhunters had been chopping fall to the ground. It did not touch a single other tree on its way down. He raised an eyebrow: it was good that the clans were paying attention to the gnoll.

“Respect the tree,” the gnoll repeated. “Observe how it leans. Safer and easier for everyone if a tree is allowed to fall the way it leans. It is one of the reasons why I marked this one.”

“Because it leans to the north,” Direfang finished. “Where it is best for it to fall.”

He nodded. “Make your cuts in a wedge shape,” the gnoll continued. He spoke slower than usual, as if instructing a child. Direfang would have taken umbrage at the tone had he not decided the druid gnoll made some sense. “Make your wedge the shape of a slice of pink summer melon, Foreman Direfang.”

The hobgoblin shook his head, not understanding.

The gnoll indicated the shape with his hairy hands. “The missing wedge will sap the strength in the trunk. Cut a smaller wedge on the opposite side-the direction you do not want it to fall. The trunk will be so weakened that it will fall of its own accord and weight. Less work for you. Less pain for the tree.” He paused. “And never turn your back on a falling tree. Sometimes nature cannot be predicted.”

The gnoll left then, not looking back. With a shrug, the hobgoblin returned to his task, chopping more carefully on the side where he wanted the tree to fall. He was strong from carrying sacks of ore from the mines down to Steel Town. Chopping into the wood was much like hammering a pick against ore-soaked walls.

Yet he soon felt his arms burn from the exertion, the sensation reaching across his shoulders and halfway down his back. It was a feeling he didn’t mind, though. Because he heeded Orvago’s instructions and was precise in his cuts, the work kept his mind focused and off his other worries. Though there was considerable noise with other goblins chopping and chattering, he listened carefully and heard only the thuck of his own axe.

Many minutes later he was rewarded with a sustained creaking and cracking. He backed away, keeping his eyes on the trunk. Bark snapped and the creaking grew louder; then the tree fell slowly, the branches from others nearby seemingly stretching out to ease its passage to the forest floor.

It was dark by the time he’d cut the branches off it and pulled them over to a pile where younglings and older goblins worked to strip off the leaves and twigs. Nothing was going to waste in their enterprise; the twigs were fueling a fire over which roasted a small bear a group of hunters had killed. The thing would not be cooked thoroughly for hours.

Smaller animal carcasses were spitted too-there and elsewhere. Direfang watched as goblins braved the flames to pull off pieces of meat and swallow them whole. Other goblins ate rabbits and moles raw, shoveled insects into their mouths, and scraped the scales from blue-green pan fish that had been netted in the river. Despite all the feasting, he knew many goblins were going hungry. Not enough food had been caught, and even goblins within a clan were squabbling for more. One fight broke out over a rabbit, but Direfang ended it with a glare.

He padded away from the largest concentration of goblins and hobgoblins, returning to the bluff where his spire remained perched. Three goblins who had been eating around the spire scampered away to give him space.

Direfang’s arms ached, and he still felt the burn in the muscles in his back. Some goblins still worked; he could hear their axes. Most of the goblins seemed as determined as he was to build the city, though he wondered if that determination would fade as the days and weeks of constant, grueling work continued.

And food was hard to scrounge.

His stomach rumbled at the thought. Food was turning out to be more of a problem than he’d anticipated. On their march there, the goblins had foraged well enough. But they weren’t moving anymore. More than five thousand goblins in one spot would swiftly diminish the river’s fish population. Would he have to turn them all into farmers? It wasn’t a bad notion; some of the clans already had the skills. But he didn’t want a nation of farmers. Humans were farmers, not goblins and hobgoblins. No, he’d intended for them to build houses and cities like the men who had lived at Steel Town.

Or was that too many years in the Dark Knights’ company talking? Too many years of listening to their stories of home and of places they’d visited … Palanthas and Solace, Haven, Gateway, and North Keep. He’d seen illustrations of Haant, Jachim, Jotan, Ohme, Willik, Unger, and Rangaar. And on the sea journey to the forest, he’d read a book filled with small histories of Flotsam, Seahall, Endhere, and Ventshire.

He’d started another book about Solamnia, though he hadn’t got very far with it. He remembered that one of the provinces, Elkholm, was in the central part of the country, at the bottom of the Vingaard Mountains, and that it consisted of scattered settlements dotting grasslands. The capital was Egaard, if he recalled, a place that he suspected bore the name of a once-important person. Caergoth, much larger-though Direfang forgot the population figure-sat on the coast and was noted as a great grain exchange. The houses there were stone, square, and wholly sturdy. Neighborhoods were sectioned off by thick, high walls; and Castle Caergoth, where the Knights of Solamnia held sway, was perched on a bluff that overlooked the harbor.

Yes, a city should have grand buildings, Direfang decided, whether the city was inhabited by men or goblins or dwarves or elves, for protection and for a sense of ownership and pride. It was one more thing to make their nation stronger. Maybe someday the goblin city would be as well known as the goblin nation of Sikk’et Hul in Northern Ergoth. And maybe someone would write a book about its buildings, as people had written about Palanthas’s cities.

“As great as Caergoth, this city,” he mused.

Their goblin city might someday have walls, but a more urgent need would be farms to help supply food. Direfang yawned. And it would need order-without the trappings of a human government. It would need scouts and guards. It would need a lot of things.

It was all too much to ponder at the moment. His stomach was sore, not just from lack of food. All his worries had settled in the pit of his belly and were churning. Bile rose in his throat and an acrid taste filled his mouth. He spit and coughed as he listened to the creaking groan of another oak tree falling.

Direfang slept badly, his dreams filled with starving goblins, some of them drowning in the river, all of them calling his name and saying he was to blame for their deaths. Images of the gnoll intruded; he stood on the bluff next to Direfang’s spire, lecturing the survivors about how to properly cut down trees. Qel was behind him, fingers outstretched and sending her chilling healing waves into Direfang’s pain-filled body. And there were some dreams, just as unnerving, he could never quite remember.

When Direfang rose he elected not to take a walk, but instead to visit briefly with a few of the clans, most members of which were rubbing each others’ shoulders and arms and grumbling about the previous day’s work. There was little posturing, though there were arguments over leftover scraps of the bear. The hobgoblin did not decline when offered a hunk of the charred meat. Members of the Flamegrass clan had claimed the skin and were scraping it while Rockhide and Sully supervised, the latter making suggestions no one paid attention to.

The bear meat didn’t give him much pleasure. The arguments and chattering were ceaseless. Direfang’s head pounded, the annoying pain competing with his still-churning gut. The road he’d started down-leading the goblins to their new homeland and establishing a nation-was filled with ruts and was not an easy one to tread.

“One house just for Graytoes and Umay.” Direfang hadn’t spotted the yellow-skinned goblin as she approached. “Graytoes and Umay should not have to share a house with other goblins. Graytoes and Umay are a family, Direfang.” She poked out her bottom lip and waggled a finger for emphasis. “And maybe Jando-Jando can share this house too. Later.”

Jando-Jando was a goblin who had joined the exodus in the Nerakan mountains, having come from a wandering tribe that had heard Mudwort’s call. He was slightly smaller than Graytoes, but he was wiry and had broad shoulders with tufts of coarse hair sticking up like clumps of weeds. His orange-tinged skin could have marked him for a Flamegrass clan member, but he claimed no affiliation. Direfang noticed him watching the exchange at a distance.

“Does Graytoes intend to build this house?” Direfang stared down at the goblin. She was clutching Umay to her chest with one arm. The baby cooed happily. He hadn’t intended for the look on his face to be a cross one, but Graytoes took a wary step back.

“B-b-build it?”

“If Graytoes does not want to share-”

“Jando-Jando will build it for this family, Direfang, and-”

“Good for Jando-Jando.” Direfang turned brusquely away and lumbered toward another oak Orvago had marked. He paused to tell a group of Boarhunters to busy themselves with getting food rather than cutting trees. He’d earlier sent a hobgoblin trio away with Grallik to find something large to kill. Other hunting parties were also out and searching. Most of the clans were taking care of feeding their own, but the hunting parties were necessary because there were plenty of clanless goblins.

Direfang thought that maybe if he busied himself with chopping down a tree, the nervous churning in his stomach would stop. When he chose a tree, he made note of the direction in which he wanted the tree to fall. The gnoll had been right about that, he told himself. The gnoll was useful.

“Want some help, Direfang?” Knobnose flourished an axe with a bent handle. “Chopping is fun.”

Direfang shook his head. “Help Skakee and Rustymane. Please,” he added.

Knobnose skittered away, swinging the axe above his head and whooping.

The air was filled with chopping sounds, scattered conversations, the snap of branches, and an argument between two goblins and a hobgoblin. Direfang glanced their way every three swings, intending to step in if the argument escalated.

Orvago was teaching a dozen goblins how best to split the trunk of felled trees so the wood could be turned into pieces for building. Qel was ministering to a hobgoblin with an injured shoulder. Mudwort was near the spire, fingers thrust in the ground. Direfang wondered what she was up to but knew better than to press her. She’d told him that she was going to magically search for animals and other edibles.

He set his swings in time with others, the communal noise becoming a drumbeat in his mind, helping him to forget his worries. He focused on the noise but instead found himself thinking about Hargoth, a Solamnic city he’d once heard two Dark Knights discussing. Capital of the Coastlund province, it was a small city with a major port and trade center. Hargoth had been governed by the same important family for several generations, and some of the past rulers were noted for their heavy-handedness. The largest building was said to be the sailors’ guildhouse, not a keep for the Hargoth family or a manor for a wealthy merchant. It was known for its ornate, peaked roof that rose higher than the other structures.

Would any of the buildings in this goblin city be as grand? he wondered. Not at first, certainly. Initially they would be only serviceable.

Other places in Solamnia had notable buildings too, Direfang reflected. He tried to recall illustrations from books he’d thumbed through. There was one, he recalled, a tall-

A scream cut through the din of chopping. It was the voice of Graytoes, and it was followed by the creak and groan of a tree, and the crash it made when it struck the ground. He dropped his axe and ran toward where the scream had issued.

Graytoes held Umay, Jando-Jando at her side. Beyond them, where goblins were gathering, stretched a fallen oak. Beneath it was the crushed, lifeless body of a young goblin.

“Nature is unpredictable,” Direfang recalled Orvago saying. He looked around at the others and pronounced sadly, “Knobnose is remembered.”

DRAATH AND SALLOR

The following morning newcomers appeared on the opposite bank between the small pines and the river, a line of goblins that stretched as far as Direfang could see-more than three hundred certainly. More than four hundred, he decided after a moment. Maybe as many as five hundred, he guessed, when he spotted more emerging from the trees.

“Thought that clan would be here yesterday, Direfang, or the day before yesterday,” Mudwort said. She puffed out her chest in pride and poked at the hobgoblin’s leg. “More are coming too. The stones in the earth say so.” The red-skinned goblin grinned at Direfang. “And probably more goblins after that. More and more.”

“Too many more.” Direfang glanced down at her; she came up only to his waist. Dirt was caked around her fingers, as she’d been using her magic to see through the ground, searching for goblins and calling them there. He’d spotted her, Thya, and Grallik shortly after dawn, hunched on the top of the rise and no doubt working some sort of combined spell. He cursed himself for not having investigated what they were doing.

What did he want with five hundred more goblins?

“No more calling goblins, Mudwort. No more! There are more than enough here in this city already. Too many.” More softly, he added, “Too many hungry, hungry mouths to feed.”

“City? Huh! Not much of a city, this,” she said with a shake of her head. “Wood and dirt and grass and animal skins. Hardly a city, Direfang.”

“It will be someday, Mudwort.”

It sounded like insects were swarming around them, but the sound was all the goblins chattering. Direfang’s army was cutting trees nearby, some of them heading north to cut more trees that Orvago had scouted. Others were eating or setting out to hunt and forage-all assigned tasks by Direfang, Sully, and Rustymane. Still more goblins were gathering on the bluff to ogle the newcomers across the river, pointing and talking. “How all them eat?” he heard more than one say. Everywhere the talk seemed to be of food. His own stomach grumbled, though he knew food would not settle it.

“There is hardly enough food for the goblins already here, Mudwort. How can more be fed?” Direfang felt his stomach start to churn.

“Cities feed the people. Palanthas, Neraka, Steel Town. Cities always feed the people living there. So build your city.”

“Only if you find the food to feed this city,” Direfang said. “Look through the earth, Mudwort. Find herds and fruit trees.”

“Roots too.” She thrust her dirty hands in the pockets of her tunic and turned away, seeing Thya and heading toward her.

The line of goblins on the other side looked up and seemed, as one, to catch the eye of Direfang before plunging into the river.

“Swimming!” Rockhide said. “No fear.”

“No fear …” The words buzzed through the goblins assembled around Direfang. The chopping faded as more curious goblins swarmed onto the bluff to see the fearless newcomers.

“No drowning either. Just swimming,” Rockhide continued. The old goblin looked bewildered. “Sour minds to swim, Direfang. Sour, sour minds.”

The newcomers took steady strokes, the bulk of them cutting across the narrowest part. Some had trouble keeping their heads above water, as they carried packs and bags strapped to their backs. Others tugged sacks with one hand while using the other to help pull them through the muddy water. Not one had hesitated to enter the river.

Direfang started down the bluff to meet them, Rockhide and Skakee following. The hobgoblin Rustymane urged the others to stay back.

The wind was strong that morning, bringing Direfang the pleasant scents of the river and the pines but also the pungent smell of wet goblins exiting on his side. Skakee jabbered to Rockhide about the newcomers’ odd appearance.

They were goblins, clearly, but their skin coloration was indeed different than Direfang had seen before. Their hides were a mix of gray and brown, not one of them a single shade, but many of them were predominantly the color of the river. They ranged in height from two feet to three, all of them thin and with muscular arms. Several had filed their teeth into points.

Two padded up to Direfang, extending their hands in fists then opening and spreading their fingers. They looked so similar, he guessed the first two to be brothers.

It was a greeting he was unfamiliar with, so he simply nodded in acknowledgment of their spread fingers.

“Direfang?” one asked. The speaker had a ruff of gray hair tipped with white on the center of his head. Direfang decided that was how he would tell the two apart. “The stones called and the clan answered. The stones say Direfang is building a great city for goblins. You, Direfang?”

He gave them another nod. “Yes,” the hobgoblin said.

“Draath,” the one with the ruff said, thumping his chest with his thumb. “Sallor.” He pointed to the other. “Difficult to find this place,” he continued. “Using magic did not work. Could not look through the earth to see this place. Searched and searched. Had to find the river by sight and smell.”

Around them newcomer goblins swarmed on the bank and started up the bluff.

“This clan joins Direfang’s,” Draath announced proudly.

“The clan of the Skinweavers joins this nation,” Sallor added. He repeated the gesture of holding out his fist then opening his fingers. “More clans will answer the call through the earth. This will be a great, great nation.”

Direfang glanced up the bluff but could not see Mudwort. He growled softly in his throat. “Welcome, Skinweavers,” he said grudgingly.

The last of the clan exited the river and looked up the bluff, waiting for their chance to climb. It was obvious to Direfang they carried all their worldly possessions with them.

Less than half of them wore clothes, and those garments consisted mainly of skins that draped their bodies like tabards and shawls, and worn and frayed tunics that by their large sizes must have belonged to humans or elves. Several flaunted jewelry, perhaps taken in raids-necklaces that were dainty and feminine; thick, gold chains with charms; and rings that hung from twine. Most of them wore belts, and all manner of things hung from their bodies-soup ladles, daggers, hatchets, pheasant feathers, and bulging pouches. A goblin with an eye patch had a rusty hammer hanging from his belt and a short, curvy-bladed sword strapped to his back. Another had a polished silver tankard affixed to a leather thong. Two struggled with a rolled-up piece of tarp Direfang guessed was a tent. Another carried a paddle from a small boat. Dozens had shriveled pieces of fruit hanging at their hips.

Direfang swallowed hard. No, it wasn’t fruit. He stared closely, a part of him disbelieving what he saw-heads the size of a hobgoblin’s fist. The skin of the heads was blackened and shiny in places, and the eyes and lips were stitched shut with twine. The pale, long hair was pulled up and used to tie the heads to the goblins’ belts. The ears were pointed.

“Elves,” Rockhide whispered. “Heads of elves.”

“Elves?” Skakee asked. She waggled her finger at the old goblin. “Can’t be. Elves are bigger than that.”

The two goblins were following Direfang down the bluff.

“Tiny elf heads, Direfang. Smaller than baby heads.” Rockhide scratched at his chin. “Where do such tiny, black elves live?”

Direfang continued to stare.

“Ask those goblins-the Skinweaver clan-where such tiny elves can be found.” Rockhide poked at the hobgoblin to get his attention then snaked a hand forward and touched one of the heads hanging from Draath’s belt.

Direfang bent and whispered: “Rockhide, go find Grallik. Tell the wizard to stay close to Mudwort and stay away from the newcomers. Find Qel too, and have her keep Orvago close. Do it now, Rockhide.”

The goblin grinned happily, being assigned something important to do. He scampered up the bluff as fast as his old legs would take him, threading his way among the newcomers, and disappearing over the top. Skinweaver clansmen continued to swarm up the high bank, their voices joining with the other goblins.

The hobgoblin turned back to Sallor and Draath, pointing to one of the heads that dangled from the latter’s belt.

“I hear all the questions. These are spirit vessels,” Draath said, grinning. “We discovered a village of elves to the south, and so some of the vessels are fresh.”

“Maybe the elves are returning to try and claim this forest,” Sallor added. “Hope so. The Skinweavers can gather more spirit vessels that way.”

“Elves …” Direfang tried to shake off his disbelief.

“Horrid elves. But these elves will never claim the forest,” Draath said, a grin tugging at his lips. He brought a small head out of a pouch at his side. “This one’s real fresh.”

Sallor smiled too, revealing pointed teeth. “The spirits of these elves are trapped forever here.” He stroked the forehead of one of the tiny heads. “The spirits provide the clan strength.”

“So small,” Direfang said. “How is that possible? Elves are not so small.” The words cracked when they came out, his mouth and tongue feeling dry.

“A difficult process,” Sallor admitted. “But boiling and time helps, and then more boiling. It makes the heads shrink.”

“Then charcoal,” Draath added, “to make the skin dark and pretty.”

“Difficult, but worth the trouble, yes?” Sallor said.

“But the skulls. Bones don’t shrink.” Direfang had trouble comprehending the unsettling process.

“Don’t boil the skulls,” Sallor scolded. “Cut the skin off, careful with the face. Throw the skulls to the animals to gnaw on. Just boil the skins. Scrape the skins, boil the skins, blacken the skins, and sew the eyes and the mouths shut so the elf spirits are trapped inside.”

“Forever trapped,” Draath supplied enthusiastically. “Hate the elves.”

“Me hate the Dark Knights,” Skakee chimed in. “Maybe Grallik’s head-”

Direfang thumped her on the shoulder. “Welcome to our city, Draath, Sallor. There is much work to be done.” He hissed at Skakee, “Forget Grallik for now.” He looked away from the shrunken heads and worked up some saliva. “There are trees to be cut.” He turned and started up the bluff, shaking his head, trying to rid it of unpleasant thoughts.

LESSONS AND LOSS

Skakee took a wide swing at Rockhide, her fist connecting against the side of the old goblin’s face. He staggered from the blow, and she jumped on him before he could regain his balance, legs wrapping around his waist and hands slapping at his shoulders. She opened her mouth wide and bit him on the cheek.

He roared as they tumbled to the ground outside a leaning building, other goblins gathering around and rooting one or the other on.

Sully plunged through the growing crowd in a dozen steps, trying to grab Skakee off Rockhide and ending up getting tangled in their flailing limbs. The hobgoblin went down as the onlookers cheered.

Graytoes pulled away from the mass, shaking her head and cradling Umay close. “Do not watch such silliness,” she told the baby. “Umay should grow up not to fight.”

Several members of the Skinweaver clan brushed by Graytoes, nearly knocking her down.

“Someone hurt?” Sallor paused to ask her.

“Probably,” she answered. “Certainly by now.” Graytoes hurried along as more goblins rushed in to see what the excitement was.

The sounds of construction stopped, and the air was filled with the chattering of goblins and hobgoblins and the occasional sound a fist makes when striking something. The fight had escalated into a brawl beyond Skakee and Rockhide.

Toward the center of the big fight, Sully found himself buried by five members of the Flamegrass clan. They were pummeling and kicking him, and one snarled and bit his leg.

“Sully is wrong!” one of them hollered.

“Sully did it!” another shouted.

“Did what?”

“Where is Sully?”

“At the bottom!” That came in unison from Cari and Keth, who overlooked the fight from their perch high in an oak.

“Hit Jando-Jando!” someone called. “Hit him hard!”

“Bite Nkunda!”

The first whoosh of fire was barely heard above the din. But the second was louder. It was followed by the roar of a furious hobgoblin waving an axe in a circle above his head, the blade catching the breeze and whistling.

“This … will … stop … now!” Direfang dropped the axe to his shoulder, stepping into the midst of the fray.

“Stop it!”

Despite his orders, the fists continued to fly. Flamegrass clan members were fighting each other, as were a few Boarhunters.

Direfang roared again and gestured to Grallik, who complied with another column of fire, so close that it singed the hairs of some of the goblins.

Still, clusters continued to punch and scratch. Direfang passed his axe to Rustymane and grabbed Gnasher by the shoulder. The two hobgoblins waded into the fray and began plucking the combatants apart. Direfang was struck more than once in the process, and Gnasher was kicked so hard in the shin that he reacted violently, hurling the offending goblin over his shoulder and into the nearby leaning home. The wall teetered before falling over, taking the rest of the small structure with it.

“No!” Skakee bellowed. She was hoisted by Direfang off the unconscious Rockhide. From her high vantage point, she saw the remains of the home she and a few clansmen had been building. “No! No! No!”

Direfang shook her hard and brought her down in front of his face. “Stop now!”

“Skakee started it,” Jando-Jando offered over Direfang’s shoulder. “Got mad at Rockhide.”

Several in the crowd agreed Skakee was the instigator. Direfang thrust her under his arm as he moved among the others, continuing to pull apart the rest of the brawlers. Spittle flew from his lips as he shouted at them. “Stop! Now!”

He muttered as he approached two Flamegrass clansmen pulling at each other’s hair. “S’dards, the lot! Time wasted fighting! S’dards!” They stopped as he loomed over them.

Gradually everyone quieted. Some of the goblins returned to their home-building work, and others who had been in the brawl wandered away to avoid Direfang’s ire. Four were so battered, they had to be carried off by their clansmen. But a large crowd still remained clustered around the hobgoblin leader.

His chest rose and fell rapidly, as if he’d just run a great distance. Red lines showed in the whites of his eyes, and his brow knitted in consternation.

“Wizard!” The hobgoblin gestured with his head, and Grallik edged through the mass. Direfang’s hands were full-two goblins clutched by the scruff of their necks in his right hand, and a young Boarhunter held in his left. Skakee struggled under his arm, but he squeezed her hard and she stopped.

“I’ve no spell to make them get along,” Grallik told the hobgoblin. Then more softly, he added, “However, I can burn whichever ones you decide to kill.”

Direfang remembered his time at the Dark Knight mining camp when the priests would use their divine magic to stop fights in the slave pens, coerce the goblins into working harder and longer, and quiet pockets of rebellion.

“Horace …” Direfang said, his voice a low growl.

“Yes, he could have managed to bend their wills,” Grallik finished. “Perhaps you shouldn’t have let him go on Schallsea Island.”

Direfang released the Boarhunter clansman, who scampered away, kicking dust up in his wake. After another moment, he released the pair he’d been holding in his right hand. They stood at his feet, looking up at him repentantly. When he raised the edge of his lip in a snarl, they bolted, nearly knocking Grallik over in the process. Direfang jostled Skakee around, putting his hands under her armpits and lifting her up to stare into her wide, leathery face. She showed no fear. Instead, she looked angry.

“Rockhide will be fine.” That came from Rustymane, behind Direfang, who pointed to the old goblin sitting dazedly nearby. Rockhide seemed only half awake. “That pale healer woman …”

“Qel,” Grallik provided.

“Qel will mend Rockhide.” Rustymane scooped him up and lumbered off toward where goblins had been building the healer and the gnoll a small house.

“Qel should not have to mend Rockhide,” Direfang complained after Rustymane and his charge were well out of earshot. “Rockhide is old, Skakee. What is the matter with you? What could the old one have done to prompt this fight?”

The lines on her forehead grew more pronounced, her stubbornness deepening. “Should have hurt Rockhide worse,” she spit. “Should have …” She raised a little fist and shook it in the old goblin’s direction.

“What did Rockhide do?” Direfang repeated.

The crowd of goblins had been quiet, but a giggle erupted from a Flamegrass clansman near the front. Direfang shot him a fierce look, and he instantly quieted.

“Skakee, what did …”

She gestured toward what was left of the home that she and a few of her fellows had been building. “Rockhide did that.” She stared at the collapsed walls.

“That fell during the fight, Skakee. Rockhide had nothing to do with-”

One of the goblins in the front made a feigned coughing sound to get Direfang’s attention. “Uh, Rockhide leaned against Skakee’s home,” he said.

“The wall leaned a little with Rockhide,” another interjected.

Direfang felt his stomach start to churn.

“Should have hit Rockhide much, much harder.” Skakee balled her fists and shook them in the direction of Qel’s home site. “Hope Qel cannot help Rockhide. Hope Rockhide-”

Direfang sat her down. “Rockhide did nothing bad on purpose, Skakee.”

“Made the wall lean. And that made the house fall in. Rockhide’s fault. Should have hit Rockhide-”

“Leave, Skakee.”

She swallowed hard and stared at him. “Leave? Leave what? Leave what is left of this house? Nothing is left of this house. All the work and-”

“No! Leave this city, Skakee.”

From deeper in the crowd came a few gasps of surprise. Even Grallik raised an eyebrow. All eyes were on Direfang, and the sensation felt uncomfortable, like insects wandering aimlessly across his scarred hide. A part of him regretted his ruling already, wishing he’d not said anything so harsh and instead had simply scolded her. A part of him was secretly glad.

Direfang squared his shoulders and stared down at Skakee. One of the smaller goblins, she didn’t even come up to his waist. “It is time for Skakee to leave this city. There is no place for such a goblin that fights with old ones over an accident. If the house had been built better, the wall would not have leaned. The fault is not with Rockhide. The fault is with Skakee for starting a fight. The wall could have been repaired.”

She sucked in her lower lip and shook her head, disbelief etching her features. “Sorry, Direfang. Should have thought. Should not have hit Rockhide. Should apologize and-”

“Should leave now,” he said, each word hard and distinct.

“But-”

He growled from deep in his throat, and a line of drool edged over his lip and spilled onto his chest. He bent over and stabbed a finger into her chest, toppling her.

“Now, while Skakee still breathes.” The words left a bitter taste in his mouth.

She sucked in a great gulp of air at the threat to her life and scrambled backward, kicking up dust and bumping into the legs of her fellows. She got to her feet and shook her head again.

“So sorry,” she tried. “So very, very-”

Direfang took a step closer and closed his right hand into a fist, the skin paling around his knuckles.

She broke into a sob and whirled, pushing through the goblins behind her, little feet thudding against the dry ground and sending up puffs of dirt.

Goblins started arguing, some pointing at Skakee, others at Direfang.

“There could be another fight, Foreman,” Grallik said, padding up to the hobgoblin’s shoulder.

“What did the wizard say?” That came from Rustymane, who understood very few words of the common tongue.

“Quiet!” Direfang bellowed.

The arguing grew louder, and Direfang gestured to Grallik. The wizard nodded, sending a stroke of fire down behind the assembly. The scent of burned earth filled their nostrils.

“Skakee did wrong,” Direfang said loudly. His throat ached from the effort; he felt weary. He heard a rustle in the branches overhead and looked up. A few dozen goblins were hanging on thick limbs, listening and watching from a safe distance. “Skakee was punished. Simple.”

“Direfang had no right,” one of her clansmen risked speaking up. “Direfang cannot-”

“Cannot keep order?” the hobgoblin asked. He took a step toward the bold goblin and bent low to stare him in the face. “Someone must keep order, Grimstone, or chaos will rule this city.”

Several goblins agreed with Direfang, nodding vigorously and whispering that Skakee was indeed wrong to hurt such an old, clumsy goblin.

One of the Skinweavers pointed to a shrunken head dangling at his side. “Better to fight elves than goblins,” he said loudly for all to hear. “Better to collect elf heads.”

“Grimstone is wrong,” a hobgoblin named Gralin said. “Direfang is right.”

Grimstone held up his right arm and slapped his elbow with his left hand. It was an obscene gesture that riled up the goblins near him.

“This clan did not want to have a city at all,” a Fishgatherer said. “Not yet. No buildings yet. Wanted to explore first. This is a very big forest; this spot might not be the best.”

One of his clansmen pushed him. “The river is good here. This is a fine, fine spot.”

Arguments swirled, with some goblins agreeing there might be a better location for a city, one clan suggesting the mountains far to the east would be a good place for the goblins to live in caves. Another said caves would remind him of the Dark Knight mines, and he could not live or eat there.

Direfang’s stomach churned more violently, and he felt bile on his tongue, listening to all the endless chatter.

“Underground is for goblins,” a youngling suggested in a low voice. “Should not build homes. Should dig them. Father said Direfang is silly. Goblins belong in the earth where it is dark and comfortable and where the rain does not reach.”

A Boarhunter recommended all building stop and the army press south … then north again, forever wandering in search of better game and taking whatever they needed from the land.

Direfang guessed there were nearly two thousand goblins in the vicinity, most of them trying to utter an opinion, a few shouting they were hungry, voices rising angrily. His mind drifted away from the confrontation with Skakee and Grimstone. Again he thought about finding a way to feed all of them.

Grimstone repeated the obscene gesture and spit at Direfang again. “No right. In the mines Direfang was a foreman. Here Direfang has no-”

“Order!” Direfang hollered. Whispers continued, like the drone of a swarm of insects. “Order! Grimstone can follow Skakee.” Direfang rose to his full height and set his fists against his hips.

“Direfang is wrong.” Grimstone puffed out his chest. One of the taller goblins, at well more than three feet, he was also one of the stockiest, with a belly that spilled over a leather belt. “Direfang cannot say which goblins stay and which goblins go. This is a city for goblins, not a city for Direfang.”

“This is not a city for chaos.” Direfang lowered his voice solemnly, the murmurs in the crowd fading so they could hear him.

Grimstone used the obscene gesture again and again, directing it at only Direfang. “This is not Direfang’s city.” He insisted, waggling his fingers in the direction of Qel’s home. “This is not a city for a human or a …”-he searched for the word-“gnoll. Not a city for a Dark Knight wizard.” He pumped his fist in the air. “This is a city only for goblins. Direfang should leave. Skakee should come back.”

The thought teased the hobgoblin’s mind-leaving. It would be the easy thing to do. His stomach wouldn’t churn, and he could live without the constant chattering and squabbling of this or that clan. They could well build the city without him.

“Direfang must leave,” Grimstone continued, adopting a haughty pose.

Direfang recalled that the same pudgy goblin had caused a stir on a few occasions in the slave pens. Then, too, he had tried to pit one group of goblins against the other. An instigator, Grimstone was. Direfang stared at the instigator.

“Direfang must follow Skakee and never come back. This is not Direfang’s city.” Grimstone waved his arms, trying to get the goblins near him to agree.

Rustymane passed by Direfang and strode right up to Grimstone. The hobgoblin had a grin splayed wide on his face.

“It is not Grimstone’s city either,” Rustymane said. “I agree with Direfang. Time for Grimstone to follow Skakee.”

“Yeah, time for Grimstone to leave.” That came from Sully, who held Direfang’s axe over his shoulder. “Past time.”

“Past time!” hollered Keth from up in the oak tree. “Well past time!”

“Past time!” became a chant that swelled, drowning out all other sounds as more goblins came to investigate.

Grimstone’s face fell as the tide turned against him.

Flamegrass clan members grabbed at the large goblin, who managed to wrestle himself away from the first bunch. But more came at him, accompanied by Boarhunters and Rustymane. They jostled and pushed until Grimstone was overcome by the throng. Then they pushed him south toward the bluff and the river.

“Leave, Grimstone,” Rustymane said, grinning. “Find Skakee and start a city for two.”

Grallik stood just behind Direfang and tipped his chin up to speak into the hobgoblin’s ear. “In your effort to avoid chaos, Foreman, you could well have helped to nurture it. From here on, your goblins might decide on a whim to oust this or that troublesome character with little provocation.”

“Then hope that the goblins do not want to oust a wizard,” Direfang said grimly, flashing a look at the human. He retrieved his axe from Sully and headed north to cut down a tree.

A STORM-TOSSED CITY

Direfang slept on the bluff near his spire, or rather he tried to sleep. His thoughts wouldn’t let him rest. He was thinking too much, mostly about Skakee, a young goblin he’d been fond of once and who he had sent away. She’d been helpful on the journey to the woods and had never caused any real trouble before. But she’d seriously hurt Rockhide and really had shown no remorse for doing so.

Such behavior couldn’t be tolerated in his city. His city? He shook his head. No, Grimstone was right about that. The city belonged to all of them.

He hoped Skakee was faring well. He’d never cared for Grimstone and didn’t worry over what happened to the pudgy goblin. But Skakee … maybe he should have handled the matter differently.

Direfang had visited Qel late the previous night. Rockhide had still been with her, sleeping soundly as the two of them talked. She’d said a few of the old goblin’s ribs had been broken and that the tip of his nose had been bitten off; what was left of it looked infected. Another chunk of flesh was missing from his cheek. His legs were terribly bruised from being kicked, and both of his ankles were sprained. She’d spent quite some time pouring her magic into him.

“More than one little goblin caused all these injuries,” she’d said. “Had you stopped the fight any later, the old one would have died. Pity they would pick on one of so many years.”

Direfang saw that Rockhide was shivering under a blanket, and he remembered feeling cold when Qel had tended the wounds he’d received from a bloodrager. The healing was painful too, he knew.

“The old goblin will live,” she’d told him as he stared.

“Rockhide,” Direfang said, wanting her to speak his name.

“Rockhide will live,” she corrected herself. “I have trouble remembering faces and names. But I want him-Rockhide-to stay here the rest of this day and tomorrow. I worry about the infection. It may spread, and I may need to use more spells.”

Qel’s home would be shared with Orvago in the new city; Direfang thought it best that both of the mystics from Schallsea stay together. And the site was near the home of a few trusted hobgoblins who served as both protectors and spies. Her home would not be as small as the goblin houses when it was finished; it needed to be big enough for the two to sleep in and to accept a few patients. Too, Direfang wanted her and the gnoll to be reasonably happy there. The fight again illustrated the importance of having healers in the city.

Grimstone had been wrong about that, Direfang reflected. The mystics were useful to the goblin nation.

Posts had been driven into the ground to mark where the walls would go, and the skins of two bloodragers had been stretched across half of the space to serve as a roof until something better took its place. Lines dug into the ground showed where two interior walls would go; he doubted that the other homes would have the same luxury of divided space.

Direfang himself had not selected a spot to build a home, nor chosen goblins or hobgoblins to share it with. He didn’t know if he would ever. He’d had too many walls in his life-in the mines in Steel Town then being relegated to one of the pens where the knights had kept all the slaves. On one hand he thought it would feel good to have a building he could call home, a sense of ownership and a place of safety, where he could keep the chest filled with maps and books. But he also liked the idea of living out of doors, with nothing surrounding him. Some of the clansmen were digging burrows into the ground rather than building something they called a “too-human home.”

He rose and stretched, shaking off thoughts of Skakee, Rockhide, and Qel, and deciding he might sleep later-if sleep would come. It was the hazy time before dawn, and the wind was the strongest it had been since they settled there. It blew warmth across his face, with all the small branches clacking and making so much noise he couldn’t hear the lapping of the river. He headed east, along the edge of the bluff, staring at goblins upon goblins sleeping curled close to one another. He listened to their snores as he threaded his way through them-snores loud enough to be heard over the noise made by the wind. Only a few dozen goblins within his line of sight were up, either getting an early start on the day or not yet having gone to sleep. One waved to him. There was a sea of bodies, and more beyond the range of his vision.

All of it a dream and a nightmare, Direfang thought.

So many goblins in one place could never be captured like the small tribes and clans had been by the minotaurs and ogres in the Nerakan mountains. There were simply too many goblins for any force to capture, overcome, or enslave.

Safety and freedom in numbers, he’d preached to the horde when he first urged them to stay together. As he looked around, there were more than he’d ever anticipated. He hoped Mudwort was not calling more.

There would be room enough for them, certainly-Direfang had seen a map, and the forest looked as though it went on forever. But more goblins meant more chattering, more fights, more trouble finding food. He held his hand to his forehead.

Would Skakee be all right? he wondered.

He passed homes in various stages of construction. There were as many different styles of buildings as there were clans. The closest one to the edge of the bluff was nearly complete and resembled the tavernkeeper’s in Steel Town because the logs that formed the walls stood on end. It lacked windows, though a charcoal-drawn square on the logs on the west side indicated where one might be cut. The door was merely an opening with a deer hide hanging across it. The roof was crooked, made of branches woven together with vines and pitched like the tavernkeeper’s had been, high and sharp. The roof rattled in the wind, and he knew that the snores seeping out from behind the deerskin had to be loud because he heard them clearly.

A tent had been pitched close by, patched with animal hides, and tilted to one side. A corner of it was loose and flapped like a one-winged bird trying to take off. Several Skinweavers were sleeping inside, a small black pot sitting just beyond the entrance. Direfang wondered if they had boiled elf heads inside the pot.

A little farther on, Direfang saw a group of homes that were essentially lean-tos. Impatient members of the Flamegrass clan had built them quickly and haphazardly, unwilling to spend more time on something more substantial. Despite the time they’d spent chopping trees and clearing sections of ground, only a few dozen homes were essentially finished. It would take months, the hobgoblin knew, before there were homes for everyone.

“Months and months,” he muttered to himself, pausing to stare down the bluff. “Maybe years.” On a wide stretch of bank, some of the Fishgatherers had started to build one large building that would likely house twenty or more of their clan. It boasted a foundation made of stones they’d pulled from the shallows of the river. Logs lay near it, but not even one wall was started. The clan slept between the foundation and a stand of cattails that bent almost flat in the wind.

He felt a drop of rain and looked up. More drops hit his face. He closed his eyes and relished the feel of wetness, until the rain started to come down harder. It rat-a-tat-tatted against his hide and the lean-tos, and it woke up goblins sleeping outside unfinished dwellings. It pattered against the ground that had for long days been hard and dusty. In fact, it hadn’t rained for days, and so many of the ferns and wildflowers were wilted and brittle.

Direfang held his arms out, welcoming the deluge and a chance to wash the stink from his clothes and hide. He had a brief pang of worry over some of their supplies, but most were in chests-all of his books and maps were safe, all of it was tucked beneath the mushroom canopies of the big willows.

Many of the goblins did not share his gladness for the rain. Many howled and cursed as they scattered, looking for shelter. The Fishgatherers found it beneath an overhang of the bluff-Direfang watched them scurry there; then, though, a few of them raised their hands to the dark sky and danced.

The slap of goblin feet competed with the pattering of rain as the goblins scrambled for cover. He slowly turned to survey the bedlam, seeing a bunch of goblin fingers poking out from under the tent in an effort to hold it down. The loose corner flew free, and more of the tent flapped wildly. Nearby, goblins crowded into the home with the tilted, high-pitched roof.

Lightning flashed and in that instant, Direfang saw goblins who had been sleeping in a big oak scramble down the trunk. Another flash of lightning was followed by an unusually loud clap of thunder. He felt the ground tremble beneath his feet. Some of the younglings cried in fear, and their parents told them it was nothing to worry over. It was not like when the earth bucked in Neraka, and the volcanoes erupted. It was merely a storm.

A scream followed another flash, and Direfang watched the home that had been built to resemble the tavernkeeper’s totter. Goblins spilled out from behind the deerskin door just as the walls fell apart and the roof started to slowly cave in.

The rain pelted sideways, and the Flamegrass lean-tos took flight, goblins frantically trying to grab at the hides and sections of thatch that were careening across the open ground. He stood and watched helplessly. The rain was a solid sheet of gray that had turned patches of dirt into wide puddles and bent the smallest trees. He saw shapes in the gray, goblins scrambling from one place to the next, and in between gaps in the thunder, he heard their curses and the whoops of some of the younglings who seemed not to mind all the water.

The rare torrent went on for what seemed like a long, long time. At one point the wind blew so hard, it took Direfang to his knees. Then it suddenly lessened to a gentle patter, the bluster gone out of the storm. The sky was still dark, dawn held at bay by the still-thick clouds. Direfang’s eyes were keen, and he didn’t need the light to see.

Most of his city was in ruins. All it had taken was a great storm.

Walls had collapsed, roofs had blown away, and there were no traces of some of the lean-tos. Direfang padded toward Qel’s and discovered the bloodrager pelts torn loose from the posts. But Orvago had stopped the wind from stealing them; he and Qel held them around Rockhide in an attempt to keep the old goblin dry.

A few of the homes-or rather the frames of homes-had withstood the onslaught, but as Direfang had noted earlier they were better constructed than the majority. They were the property of the Boarhunters, the goblins who had seemed practiced at cutting down trees.

Another home not far from the edge of the bluff appeared to be unharmed. He headed toward that place. It was small and squat, the logs that made up its sides were short and rose little more than two feet off the ground. The roof was a tightly woven mass of grasses and thin branches.

“Mudwort?”

Direfang knelt at the entrance. He’d seen her building it, with the help of Sully, who she’d somehow coerced and directed into doing her bidding. The building was unlike any of the others, and he peered inside what passed for the door.

“Mudwort?” It was so dark inside that he almost didn’t see her. But then the shadows moved, and her eyes glowed red for an instant. She was alone. Where most of the goblins craved companionship and wanted to share their dwellings, Mudwort preferred solitude. They were alike that way, at least, Mudwort and Direfang.

“Was sleeping, Direfang.”

“Not in the storm. The storm woke everyone.” His eyes began to distinguish between the shadows, and he realized the floor of her home was not level like all the others. It was a bowl-shaped depression that was dug a few feet deep. That was why the walls outside were so short, her home was dug halfway into the earth. Inside, Mudwort could stand and raise her hands up and still not touch her ceiling.

Inside it was dry.

Direfang crawled in.

Mudwort puffed out her chest. “Direfang brings in the rain,” she sneered.

He smelled the muskiness of her and the richness of the earth too. He also smelled an assortment of herbs she’d gathered and was drying along one wall. Folded next to them was a tunic on a leather satchel, and a small pouch Direfang knew was filled with sapphires taken from the same dwarven village where Graytoes had found her baby. There was a polished wood cup and a few other small items that were inconsequential yet comprised Mudwort’s treasure.

He sat opposite her, discovering the bowl was deep enough that he did not have to hunch his shoulders.

“The city, Mudwort, is-”

“In pieces. Saw it fall. Saw the wind take the roofs and knock down the walls.” She shook her head and put on a sad face, though Direfang suspected her expression was ingenuous. “But saw Graytoes and Umay find shelter. Saw Grallik and Sully and-”

“Grallik lives with Sully.” Direfang had forced the wizard upon the hobgoblins, wanting him closely watched and at the same wanting him kept safe.

“The house of Sully, though not done, is not undone,” Mudwort finished saying. “Did not see a goblin hurt. Not hurt bad. Just the buildings.” She puffed out a breath, blowing dirt around Direfang’s knees. “The storm was not so bad then, Direfang.”

He intended to ask her how she saw the storm wreak such havoc when she was apparently inside, dry in her bowl. But he saw her fingers were dirty, and when he looked especially close, he noticed indentations in the earth where her fingers had been digging. She’d used her magic to watch it all.

“No, the storm was not horrible. But the homes were.” He craned his neck this way and that, looking at the sturdy construction of Mudwort’s little house.

“Built bad, most of them were,” Mudwort agreed.

“But not this one.”

She grinned wide.

He didn’t say anything for a while, listening instead to the soft patter of the rain against the roof and the slap of goblin feet, as well as the muted curses of those who had lost their homes. A gust of wind brought a little rain inside, wetting his back. It added a fresh scent that he breathed deeply.

“But not this one,” he repeated. “In the before time, Mudwort”-that was what they had called the time previous to their capture and enslavement by the Dark Knights-“did your clan live in homes like this? In the foothills of Neraka by the river branch?” He knew a little of where she had come from before being captured by ogres and subsequently sold. But she was secretive and didn’t speak much of herself or her past.

She shook her head. “Lived in caves,” she said.

“Where did Mudwort see such a home as this and know how to build such a thing?”

Her eyes clouded.

“Where, Mudwort?”

She dropped her chin to her chest, so she didn’t have to look him in the eyes.

“Mudwort.”

“In the earth,” she said finally, blowing out another breath and stirring the dirt. A goblin ran by the entrance to her home, throwing mud up behind his feet. Another chased him, dangling a shrunken elf head from his hand: just younglings playing. “Looking through the earth. Saw a clan with homes like this, a clan from a long while ago. Decided this home should look the same as one of those from long ago.”

Direfang ran his fingers across the bowl floor. The earth was hard and smooth, as if it had been sculpted, though there was loose dirt in the very center, probably from Mudwort using her magic. The floor of her home reminded him of a food bowl he’d watched a potter in Steel Town craft and later paint.

“Mudwort was smart to build such a fine, dry home.”

Again the red-skinned goblin beamed with pride.

“All of the homes in this city should be so fine.”

Mudwort opened her mouth and shook her head. “Direfang-”

“All will be so fine and dry.” He crossed his arms as he thought it over, deciding. “Mudwort’s magic will make many, many bowls like this. And Mudwort and Sully will teach the clans how to build homes just like this.”

Mudwort glared at him. “No, this home is special, Direfang.”

“All the homes in this city will be special, Mudwort. Then the storms will be no bother.”

She sputtered and shook her head, raised a hand as if to make a gesture, then irritably drew it down on her lap.

“When the rain stops,” Direfang said, turning and crawling out of her home. His broad shoulders scraped against the narrow opening. “When the rain stops, Mudwort will start teaching.”

She slammed her fist against the earth the moment he was gone.

EARTH BOWLS

Mudwort spread out a piece of thatch that had blown off someone’s roof. She knelt on the edge of it, not wanting to get her knees in the mud left behind from the morning’s downpour. She liked the feel of the earth against her fingers, and soon she would be sticking her arms deep into it, but she didn’t want to dirty her legs and her tunic that hung practically to her ankles. Mudwort was particular about the few items of clothing she possessed.

She leaned forward and set her fingertips against the ground. It felt cool and she treasured the sensation for a moment, as it was pleasant and she was feeling annoyed. Annoyed, flustered, aggravated, verging on angry-she was all of those things, and more. It was not her fault that all the other goblins built shoddy homes. It was not her fault Direfang had selected such a forsaken place for their city rather than up against a mountain, where they could find caves and wouldn’t have to spend their days building and sweating and muddying and tearing their clothes. She should not be tasked with that; her home was finished, warm and fine and perfect, and she should not have to help the others build something as perfect as hers.

Direfang had clan leaders nearby, studying her home. She saw them when she craned her neck around a spindly willow birch, poking at the sides of her place and probably digging out some of her river clay mortar. She should have built her home far, far away, where Direfang would not have seen its fine construction. It would have saved her the work she was about to do.

She took a deep breath and let her fingers sink in. Happy was the dirt in that spot. Sated with water, worms crawled deeper into the ground, and she sensed that seeds were awakening near the surface. She would send her senses far away from there, from Direfang’s blown-down city; she’d find the goblins she spied in the long-ago times and search for the spear. Finding it was far more important than helping the clans build homes.

She’d wanted to come to the forest because of the spear, it’s true. When sending out her call for goblins, she’d accidentally discovered she could search through the earth not just in the present time, but through the past. Decades past, centuries probably, she discovered her counterpart, a young shaman who wore a great many necklaces and led her people out of the mountain caves and into the forest where food was plentiful. The shaman came across a great magical spear that was said to have been Chislev’s, Mudwort saw. Then Mudwort lost sight of the shaman and the spear, too many other things occupying her attention.

She should look for that spear that very minute.

But Direfang hovered nearby, watching, waiting, demanding that she help him build the city. She could almost hear his foot tapping anxiously, his mind racing.

Find the shaman in the past. More important, find the spear.

It had been during one of her mental forays through the earth, looking for the spear, that she’d first noticed the dwellings the long-ago goblins were building. They dug holes in the ground and smoothed the sides and cleared the weeds and rocks-a few of them using magic to make the task go faster. They used short logs for walls, as she had, weaving cattails and reeds to keep them together and make a dense roof, using clay from the river and dung from animals to mortar the logs tight. Each home was at the same time in the earth and above the earth.

Like Mudwort’s fine, fine home.

She closed her eyes and coaxed the earth to become as malleable as soft clay, and she began to mold it. When Direfang had watched her shape the ground after leaving Steel Town, he told her she was a sculptor … then he had to explain just what that meant, and about clay and mugs and small statues representing great heroes and worthless gods, all made by someone who could work clay with her fingers.

Only she used her mind.

Mudwort pictured the depressions the goblins in the past had made and the one she herself had formed for her own home. She imagined the dirt around her hollowing itself, and beneath the surface she cupped her hand.

She heard a gasp over her shoulder and nearly lost her concentration. It was followed by whispers, and though she wanted to know what was being said, she forced all the words and other sounds away. There was only the earth.

It took several minutes for the dirt to obey, forming a bowl shape similar to her cupped hand. Mudwort remembered the bowl-house was going to be for Graytoes and Umay, and perhaps for Jando-Jando, who had made it more than clear he wanted to be Graytoes’ mate. It did not need to be large, for only three, but Mudwort knew Direfang was fond of Graytoes, so she made the depression a little deeper, the sides wider. Besides, there could well be baby goblins in Graytoes’s future, and the family could use the space.

There was another gasp, and Mudwort opened her eyes, rolled her shoulders, and spotted Graytoes over there cradling Umay. Jando-Jando was several yards back, struggling with an armload of logs. Mudwort gauged the size of the thickest of the logs then walked around the exterior of the depression, grinding her thumb into the lip and ordering the earth to do her bidding, careful not to get the hem of her tunic muddy. Big holes appeared, a foot deep. As she continued her walk, Jando-Jando fitted one of the logs into the first hole then moved along the next.

She paid attention to the chatter from all the goblins who had crept closer to watch and discuss the goings-on.

“Mudwort will build all the homes.”

“Not the homes of the Fernwold clan.”

“It is like a cave.”

“But it will be better than a cave. Wonderful.”

The last came from Cari, who promptly ordered Keth to start digging a hole inside their home. The Boarhunters’ home-in-progress was one of the few that had not fallen in the storm.

When Mudwort had finished making the holes for Jando-Jando’s posts, she picked up her thatch mat and padded a few yards away to another bare spot of ground. She didn’t know who the next home would be for, and she didn’t care. Kneeling on the mat, she touched her fingers to the damp earth and after several long minutes she had the beginnings of another depression.

It was after her fourth earth bowl that she shook out her shoulders and rubbed her temples wearily. Her head ached from the mental effort of moving the ground. Direfang still watched her, proud and pleased, no longer a stern expression on his craggy face.

She looked to the bluff and padded toward it. Still attuned to the earth, she felt his heavy footfalls behind her. Mudwort walked faster then scampered down the bluff, stepping past the foundation of the Fishgatherers’ home and to the edge of the river. She hiked up her tunic and stepped into the cool wetness. The water swirled around her ankles. Like most goblins, she couldn’t swim. But she could see the bottom there through the silt-laced water. It felt good, and she ruffled her toes in the sediment.

“Many more bowls needed today, Mudwort.” Direfang stood a few feet back, looking stern again.

“Tired. Hard work.” Holding the hem of her tunic in one hand, she bent and cupped some water with the other, raising it to her mouth for a drink then dipping it into the river again so she could splash water on her face. She tarried in the shallows, hoping he would leave. But she finally gave up and joined him. “Head hurts, Direfang.”

“Get the others to help.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Thya has magic. Saw you and Thya and Grallik talking to the ground. Others too.”

Mudwort had thought about combining magic with the others, but a part of her hadn’t wanted to share the making of the earth bowls. It was her magic, not theirs. She scowled and dug her heel into the river clay.

“So tired, Direfang.”

“So much work to be done, Mudwort.”

He left her, climbing a low section of the bluff. Plants had grown there, but the goblins going to and from the river had uprooted them or smashed them, leaving a clear path. Mudwort waited until the top of Direfang’s head disappeared before she scurried after him.

“Find Thya,” Mudwort said to a youngling carrying a bundle of twigs. “Find Draath,” she said to another. When the young female cocked her head, Mudwort added, “The goblin with three tiny elf heads.”

She didn’t have to look for Grallik. He was close by, watching her; he met her eyes through a sea of activity and approached.

“Direfang spoke with me,” he began. His eyes glistened, and she knew it was because the wizard actually looked forward to the chance to mingle magic. “But fire is my true purview, Mudwort. You know that. I’m not sure that I can-”

“Then don’t try,” she retorted. She stalked away, picking out a spot for the next bowl.

“But I will try,” he said just loud enough for her to hear as he followed. The rest of his words were lost in the scampering of goblin feet and the sounds of broken walls and roofs being torn apart. Everywhere the rebuilding was beginning.

Mudwort continued to use her mat, though Thya, Draath, and Grallik kneeled in the dirt to form a circle with her. She studied their faces: Thya’s was always hard to read, as she was a stoic soul who seemed to show little emotion; Draath was an enigma, and he looked angry when he cast magic, but she thought it was merely the way his features knitted together when he concentrated; Grallik could not hide his eagerness. The half-elf wizard had rankled her from the moment he joined the goblin army, and more than once Mudwort had wished him dead.

But he’d proven himself too valuable. There was energy in his scarred body and in his mind that she siphoned whenever they joined arcane forces. Too, some spells came so easily to him-anything to do with fire. Mudwort coveted such magics and continued to learn from the half-elf wizard, tugging the nuances of the enchantments from his memory, likely without him knowing it. So she would put up with him for as long as he continued to be useful. She thrust all musings of the wizard, Thya, and Draath to the back of her mind; it would be unfortunate if they picked up on what she was thinking about them.

The quartet sunk their hands into the earth, touching fingers beneath the surface. It was at the same time a distinctly uncomfortable and a wildly thrilling experience to join magic with another. She imagined she felt Draath’s breath on her face and could hear through Thya’s ears; she thought she was staring in wonder with Grallik’s keen halfelf eyes, and yet she was in command of all her faculties and senses.

She pictured the homes from the long-ago time and watched with the other three as the ancient clan dug the earthen bowls with crude tools-a few using their magic. They watched as the scene shifted to goblins driving posts into the ground and weaving thatch and small branches. At the same time, she willed the ground to shape itself.

Draath’s mind was the first to join hers. His magic was very strong, she could tell, and that frightened her a little. It had a dark and dangerous feel. Thya joined next, a raw talent that needed training, and finally Grallik, who seemed astonished that he could work earth magic. Before the wizard had only “seen” through the ground with Mudwort. But there she taught him-no, forced him-to sculpt the ground.

“Imagine that the dirt forms a hollow spot,” Mudwort told the others. “Like a bowl, an empty spot in a tree, the shell with its nut gone, the shape of a bird’s nest.”

She passed her mental image along to the other three, and within moments they were sinking. Rather than form the depression next to them, they formed it under themselves. And when Grallik’s shoulders met the lip of the ground behind their backs, they stopped. It took little time. It took longer to smooth the bowl, and remove from it a rock the size of a hobgoblin’s head.

Thya made the holes for the posts, Grallik closely watching, while Mudwort and Draath selected the next piece of ground.

“Not here,” she told Draath, moving on.

Draath turned his head to what looked like an uncomfortable angle and tipped his chin up. Mudwort had learned that the gesture meant the same thing as “why?” or “explain.”

“There are too many rocks, and the root from that old tree spreads to here and here and here.”

From Draath came a repeat of the gesture.

“The earth talks and says those things are beneath the surface. It talks quite plainly to those who want to hear it.” She shuffled farther from the edge of the bluff, the balls of her feet dragging in the moist earth; she loved the feel of it against her soles.

“Only little rocks here,” she said, placing her mat down and sitting cross-legged in the center. Draath took the spot to her right.

“Few of the Skinweavers have this magic,” he said. “Most of the Skinweavers have other talents.”

Like shrinking pieces of elves, Mudwort thought.

She found his voice ugly. His lips moved, but it sounded as if he talked through his nose or had a perpetual cold. Nor did she like the disgusting heads that were tied to his belt by their hanks of hair. Mudwort was certain she did not like elves, though she’d known only one half-elf, Grallik. But she did not care for humans like the Dark Knights, and elves were no doubt just as bad. She’d not heard any good tales of elves, so she couldn’t imagine why Draath and his fellows would want to carry hunks of dead elves with them, banging against their hips and their legs as they walked.

She shuddered.

“Is something bad, Mudwort?” Draath seemed genuinely concerned.

She didn’t have to answer. Thya and Grallik arrived, and they got busy joining their magic to make another hole.

Mudwort’s legs and arms felt as heavy as stone when Direfang called a break to the work. A group of Boarhunters had lived up to their name, dragging the carcasses of several boars into a clearing. Other clans set to work skinning the animals and chattered that the Fernwold clan had killed a bear. Grallik, looking as tired as Mudwort had ever seen him, was tasked with starting a fire to cook most of the meat; a few clans preferred raw flesh.

Thya slept at the rim of an earth bowl. Draath paced, looking at the carcasses and alternately wringing his hands and patting his stomach. He did not appear as fatigued as she, and when Direfang approached, the Skinweaver met him halfway. Mudwort decided to pull more energy from Draath when Direfang asked them to dig more bowls the next day. She would not take so much from Thya and Grallik and perhaps Sallor, who Draath called a minor shaman, or an old Flamegrass clansman who could work stone with a touch-all who would be helping the next day.

“Draath wants to see under the spire,” Direfang told her. Mudwort didn’t know why she should care. She did not care about the spire or about Draath beyond his usefulness with spells. “Draath is very curious,” Direfang added.

Mudwort shrugged and stretched her arms above her head; the moist dirt on her arms was drying and fell off in pieces like beetles brushed away.

“Work again soon, Mudwort. So much to be done.” Direfang stood over her, his shadow a line that stretched across her and cast a darkness over her, hanging into the most recently dug depression. “Work before the meat is cooked. Work some more.”

She didn’t say anything for a while, didn’t even look up to meet his gaze. Instead she thought wistfully about the spear again.

“The homes will be better for all the work,” he said. “Sturdy to withstand the wind. All of them fine like Mudwort’s.” He continued to talk, but she had stopped listening, wrapping her mind around the spear and thinking about the journey there, which had been arduous, but which was not filled with work and work and more work. She was tired of the journey and the work.

“No more work this day, Direfang,” she said finally. “Tired.” She gestured to Thya, who, soundly snoring, was oblivious to anything around her. “Done today.”

Direfang rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “Too much to do, Mudwort.”

“Ever the foreman,” she cut back. She tried to sound mean, but there was little strength in her voice. “How is this freedom? Same as slave mines. Work. Work. Work.”

“Tomorrow, then,” he said. The hobgoblin’s voice was softer, and for a moment she thought he might apologize for being so pushy. But apologies were a sign of weakness, for him or her. “Tomorrow dig more earth bowls. Many, many more.”

She leaned back on her elbows and felt him walk away and felt the vibrations from Thya’s snores. She was aware of other activities too. Several groups of goblins were hard at work physically digging the earth bowls. Among the supplies Grallik had purchased before their voyage were an assortment of shovels and picks, which at first the goblins had considered a waste. Suddenly they were a treasure. Some goblins were digging at the ground with their hands.

Most had decided to build homes as sturdy and earth-bound as Mudwort’s.

And only she knew that they were building very near the place the ancient clan once called home.

Her spear could not be so terribly far away.

MUDWORT’S QUEST

Direfang did not understand. He simply was not capable of understanding, Mudwort realized, at least not right at that moment.

She dug the ball of her foot into the ground and fumed. Direfang wasn’t stupid; otherwise he would not have proven the champion who won their freedom from their Dark Knight taskmasters, and he would not have led them from Steel Town to their blessed forest.

But he couldn’t seem to look beyond himself and whatever plans he had churning in his brain about their fledgling goblin nation and the city he was building. He was being selfish-even though he claimed to be thinking about the goblins as a whole.

She deserved a turn at being selfish too. “Work.” She cursed. “Work. Work. Work.” Direfang understood only work and ordering the clans around. He’d done that for years when he was a foreman in the Dark Knight mines in Neraka-work and telling others to work.

He was still doing it.

Single-minded and bent on building this damnable goblin city.

“Dig more bowls,” he’d told Mudwort just minutes before. “For goblin homes. Dig many more today. Small and big ones.”

She’d dug plenty already, done more than her share of the work in building the city.

City? It wasn’t a city, not yet. It wouldn’t be a city until a lot of time had passed and a great deal more work was put into it. And too much of that work would fall on her narrow shoulders.

Her magic had made her valuable to the clans, perhaps too valuable.

And yes, she would dig more, for Direfang. Without him she’d still be in a slave pen in Neraka.

But not anymore. Not. Anymore.

Let the other goblins dig with shovels. And let Thya, Draath, Grallik, Sallor, and a handful of others who knew how use magic dig the new buildings with their minds.

She’d more than earned some time alone.

So when Direfang was occupied with Graytoes and Jando-Jando several minutes earlier, she’d slipped away. She’d made sure Grallik hadn’t been watching her-as that seemed to be his sole hobby so he could advance his magic. If he’d been watching, Direfang certainly would have been alerted to her escape.

After a few miles, she paused behind a half-dead oak and peeked around it, just to make sure the wizard wasn’t sneaking along after her-and that no one else was following, for that matter.

No one.

Still, just to be certain, she squatted and touched the fingers of her right hand to a patch of dirt between the tree’s knobby roots. Her senses flowed down her arms and into the earth. She was instantly surrounded by the sensation of husks of dead insects, small rocks imprinted with fern leaves, and thick worms lazily burrowing. The feeling was pleasurable, and she lingered for a moment before spurring her senses on.

“The blame is here,” she said, thumping her chest. If she’d not sent her senses through the earth upon leaving Steel Town, she’d not have helped all of it to happen-the goblins living in those woods; the homes they’d constructed; her being responsible for homes like those ancient ones, which involved digging the bowls in the earth. She’d made herself far too useful and important. “S’dard! Should have stayed quiet.

“Should have stayed quiet. Quiet. Quiet.” She’d managed to stay quiet about precisely why she had wanted to come to the Qualinesti Forest-the thing in the earth had lured her there-and why she, in turn, had lured Direfang and the goblin horde.

“The Qualinesti Forest, Direfang,” she’d told him long weeks past. “That is the place for a goblin nation. Not the Plains of Dust. There are goblins in the forest, goblins elsewhere. Goblins on an island with a stairway of great energy-saw that. Goblins everywhere, scattered, weak.” She also knew of the goblins in Northern Ergoth but had no desire to join them.

There was strength and power in the forest, a great magical power, and that was what she desired.

Chislev’s spear, it was, the weapon of a god for whom she had no respect. Mudwort, like the rest of the goblins in Direfang’s army, had no faith in the gods. But the weapon … she would respect that when she wrapped her fingers around the haft of the spear, which she would do soon. It would be Mudwort’s spear then, not Chislev’s. If the god had still wanted it, the god would have it. The thing would not be buried.

The god had thrown it away.

She knew it possessed arcane powers, she’d recognized that in her earth visions when she’d glimpsed a goblin shaman from ancient times who’d found and wielded the spear.

Soon Mudwort would be powerful too.

She continued to send her senses back in time, intending to look for where the goblins were building their city, wanting to make sure that no one was following her. She expected to feel their feet pressing against the ground, the weight of so many of them crushing her and making it difficult to breathe. But that didn’t happen. Though she looked hard and long, she couldn’t find them, nor their infant city. Mudwort could not even sense Direfang, or Thya and Draath and Grallik.

“Do not understand,” she muttered. Her magic wasn’t working. She should have witnessed goblins digging earth bowls, cutting trees, and tanning hides-goblins acting civilized. She couldn’t even see the river that flowed by the bluff, nor spot the spire stone that Direfang had been obsessed with.

“Should go back,” she said, worried that something might have befallen the entire community. Maybe it was the earth under the city! Maybe something in the ground was blocking her magic, a type of rock that was foreign to her. Or perhaps she had dug so many bowls the ground was angry with her and would not let her senses travel through it.

That must be it. “The earth is mad.” Mudwort thumped her knee against the ground. “Nothing. See nothing.”

Direfang and Grallik, Qel and Orvago? The latter both odd-looking and easy to spot. But she couldn’t see them no matter how hard she concentrated.

“Forget them,” she decided. She grinned broadly and spiraled her senses out farther, no longer interested in the goblins and their earth bowls that her mind couldn’t see and instead intent on finding Chislev’s lost weapon. It wasn’t so horribly far away-she’d sensed that earlier-not so far that she couldn’t reach it in a long day’s walk. That’s why she’d approved Direfang’s plan to build the goblin city on the bluff. She did not want them going farther south and taking her farther away from her prize.

“Where?” she hissed. “Where? Where? Where?” The spear had been easy to find before, its power tugging her. “Find it. Do not let thoughts of Direfang distract. Think of only the spear.” She couldn’t say how long her mind ranged through the forest, several long minutes certainly, judging that the sun was higher and was cutting through the branches of the half-dead oak and had started to burn her shoulders.

“There. There is the thing Chislev does not care about.” The spear had a pulse, she finally realized, like a living thing, though she knew it wasn’t living. The pulse was waves of magical energy. The pulse was at the same time soothing and jarring, and she sat motionless for a while, letting the waves ripple through her.

The god had been stupid to leave such a thing behind. And the ancient shaman who had discovered it … why had she left it? What had become of her? Mudwort rose and stretched and rubbed her legs, which had become sore from lingering in one position for so long. She continued to focus on the energy of the spear, envisioning a thread between her and it.

One thought only: Follow the thread and gain the spear.

“Find it.”

Then what?

Return to Direfang’s infant city.

Then what?

She’d puzzle that out later.

Mudwort glided along to the rhythm she felt in the pulse of the magic, fingers trailing down to twirl in the tops of patches of saw grass then across tickly reeds and cattails growing along a thin stream. She closed her eyes at one point, picturing the connection between her and the spear as a glowing, wonderful string that continued to pull her farther from bossy Direfang and the horde of smelly, chattering goblins, ever closer to her wonderful prize. Her toes sank into the stream bank, and she vaguely registered the cool, agreeable sensation. She felt the brittle vines of dead flowers and the smooth ones of those living, inhaled deep the sweet scent and held it.

She should have left the others days before to pursue her goal, shouldn’t have dug so many bowls while the spear waited for her. She’d worked only as hard as she did because of Direfang, her closest-perhaps only-friend. She felt some loyalty to him and believed she owed him something since he rescued her from crumbling Steel Town.

Maybe that debt was paid finally, and maybe she’d leave them all behind forever once she had the spear. She would have to endure no more press of dirt-caked, sweat-reeking goblins and hobgoblins, no more stares from the half-elf wizard who craved magic. It would be just her and the forest and all of its good smells.

And Chislev’s spear.

She opened her eyes when her foot caught on something. Glancing down, she spotted a bony arm ending in things that looked like fingers but were not quite fingers. Strings of dried muscles held the bony arm together. The sight almost caused her to lose her thread of thought. Concentrating, she kicked at the bone and discovered it was thick and long and probably had belonged to a bear or a creature as big as one.

A bloodrager? Hardly a trace of flesh on it, the forest scavengers had picked it clean, just the few strings of muscle that looked as hardened as the bones. It could make a useful tool, so she picked it up and shook it until what had been its paw fell free.

Mudwort wrapped her fingers around the bony arm, just as she intended to wrap her fingers around the spear. She carried it as she cut across a plot of trillium, imagining the bone was her magical spear. That made it easier to concentrate on the pulse and to block out everything else. She even managed to push away the shushing of the wind-jostled leaves and the musical chitter of the little birds nesting overhead. She ignored the play of the soft breeze against her face and the still-burning heat of the sun on her shoulders as she stepped under gaps in the canopy.

Then, all of a sudden, fingers dug into her arms and lifted her, snapping the wavelength that connected her to Chislev’s spear. In her surprise she dropped the bone, which her captor immediately slammed his heel on and broke. At first she thought Direfang had somehow followed her and was bringing her back to dig more bowls. But after a heartbeat she realized Direfang would not have been so violent and hurtful, would not have ruined the bone, and would have said something nice to her.

She kicked furiously, and twisted this way and that to see which offending hobgoblin had dared to disturb her. Or perhaps it was that pesky gnoll Orvago.

“S’dard!” she snarled. “Fool! Ignorant gnoll!”

“It’s a small one,” the human voice shot back. “Can’t tell if it’s young.”

She twisted harder and managed a glance over her shoulder. The sun glinted off the plate armor of a Dark Knight, practically blinding her. Her heart seized and she fought for breath. Dark Knights here? So far from Steel Town and Neraka? Not possible! Where was she?

But it was not a dream. The mailed fingers felt like rock shards digging into her flesh.

“S’dard!” she cried.

She should not have left Direfang and the others. She should have stayed and dug more bowls. She should have looked for the spear later.

“And a feisty one.”

She should have come after the spear later, after more work was done, when she would have been safe.

“Take care that it does not bite you,” a second voice said. “We’ve no healer with us. Remember, goblins carry disease.”

She should have searched with Sully or Gnasher or even with the damnable wizard … with someone who might have watched her back and seen the knights coming. Coming from where? Why?

“Aye, Tannen, I’d not want to catch some malady from this pitiful thing.”

Mudwort understood most of their words, having listened to the knights at Steel Town and more recently studying the language of Grallik. The words burned in her belly. She hated Dark Knights more than anything. What were they doing in these woods? Why hadn’t she stayed to dig more bowls? She needed to be free!

The knight squeezed her arms even tighter, the pain becoming everything and nearly making her pass out. Then he eased his grip and shook her, as if she were some little carcass a mongrel dog had gotten a firm hold of.

“It has clothes, Tannen. It might be one of them.”

“If it is one of them, we’ll be looking at a promotion.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her captor shake his head and utter a word she took as a curse. “Not for only one of them, a promotion. We’ll need to find a big goblin nest.”

The second knight stepped in front of Mudwort, his black tabard filling her vision. She had to look up to take him all in. He didn’t wear a helmet, and his black hair was slicked back against the sides of his sweaty face as if he’d oiled it. His skin was the color of milk, though his nose was rosy from the sun. She thought his eyes too small, reminding her of those of a pig, and there were little lines around them, suggesting he had some age to him.

“Maybe she’ll take us to a big nest after all.”

Mudwort launched a gob of spit that struck the knight’s thin lips. He made a gagging sound and slapped her so hard, the colors of the forest sickeningly swirled with the black of his tabard.

“She understood me. Zocci said some of them speak the common tongue.”

“Pray to the gods she does understand,” the one holding her replied. He was the one the milk-skinned man had called Tannen.

The one called Tannen shifted her, tucking her under his arm and holding her so tightly, she feared her ribs would break. She could manage only little breaths, and when she struggled to get her arms out so she could claw at him, he squeezed harder.

“Pray that she’s from a very big nest. Let’s take her to Zocci and find out just where she’s from.”

She felt each rock he stepped on and each root that tugged at his feet as he and his fellow knight wound their way down an overgrown game trail. It opened on a small clearing where four other knights sat around a fire roasting a wild pig. Three of them jumped to their feet, while the fourth remained intent on turning the spit.

Mudwort hurriedly took everything in-packs and swords propped against trees, a tent stretched between two sweet bay trees. It looked like the men had been camped there for a while.

Tannen dropped her roughly on the ground and set his foot against her stomach to keep her in place.

“Only one,” he told them, gesturing to another knight. “We found tracks and followed them. And this is what they led to.”

“A small female.” That came from the tallest of them. He was broad shouldered and had narrow hips, and with his feet together and posture stiff, his form reminded Mudwort of a dagger thrust into the ground. “Looks weak, starving maybe. And with clothes. Maybe from Steel Town. Should check her for scars and whip marks.”

“I think she understands the common tongue.”

The tall knight studied Mudwort. “Aye, from the looks of her eyes, I’d say you’re right, Donnel. Good work.” He stiffly bent forward and stretched a hand down, his mailed finger wiping at a smudge of dirt on Mudwort’s forehead. The gesture seemed oddly tender. But a heartbeat more, and the hand was clamped around Mudwort’s neck. He nodded to Donnel, who removed his foot, and he grinned at Tannen.

The tall one held her high, applying just enough pressure to keep her in check. “Are you from Steel Town, little red goblin?”

Mudwort didn’t answer, but her gaze bored into him. “Aye, she is. Her eyes speak as loud as any voice. A fine prize you’ve secured, Donnel, Tannen. First to eat this evening, you two are. And no watch duty for you.” He brought Mudwort down so he could stare directly into her face, his lips curled up. His dark eyes fixed on her and held her as firmly as his grip.

“We should take her to Zocci,” Tannen declared. “He’ll get information out of her.”

The tall knight nodded. “That we will. But it would behoove us to try our own tactics first. Save Zocci the trouble. Gain us stature with the commander.” He turned to stare grimly at Mudwort. “You will tell us where the rest of the Steel Town slaves have gone, little goblin.”

Mudwort squirmed and was rewarded with a punch to her stomach.

“The sooner you tell us, the less it will hurt. And if you cooperate well, little goblin, when we kill you we will burn your corpse and scatter your bones, as is your ghoulish custom. But if you decide not to cooperate …” The knight reached his free hand to hers, grabbed her little finger, squeezed and twisted it, and bent it back until it snapped. Then he reached for the next.

BERA’S HEART

Bera Kata stood six feet tall and was as muscular as most of the men in her command. She’d spent more than half of her adult life in the Dark Knights, leaving behind her husband and grown daughter for her respected posting. The knighthood was her closer family and held her heart.

Her plate mail glistened in the late-afternoon sun, and her tabard, which appeared pressed, flapped gently in the slight breeze. Her helmet, polished to an almost hurtful sheen, was tucked under one arm, and her chin was pointed up, giving her a mien of aristocracy.

She stepped over a fallen log and waved her men forward, leading them beyond the beach and into a section of the woods where narrow trunks grew so close together, the burliest of her knights had to walk sideways. They marched for days, the weave of the canopy becoming tight and allowing only a little light to filter down, which looked like panes of crystal. She wiped her forehead clean of gnats and, despite her fatigue, adopted a faster pace, the beauty of the place lost on her.

When she’d first stepped into those woods, the air had been alive with pleasant birdsong and the gentle rustle of small branches and clumps of leaves stirred by the wind. As she walked, she heard only the clank of armor and the snap of twigs breaking beneath her men’s feet, the ragged breath of a few soldiers, and the occasional skittering of a small ground animal giving her force a wide berth.

Am I right? she wondered. Did the goblins of Steel Town come this way? By the Dark Queen’s memory, let this be the right course.

She’d learned by spreading around a liberal amount of steel in a port along the Newsea-while confirming her findings with Isaam’s magic-that a heavily scarred man had purchased ships with a cargo rumored to be goblins. More coins booked passage for her entire company of knights. She had followed the goblin ships to Schallsea Island, where persistent questioning of local fishermen and more of Isaam’s spells revealed the ships had indeed borne goblins, as well as a plague. Though the fishermen did not say where the ships sailed after the healers had done their job, she managed to capture someone who finally talked.

“The former homeland of the elves,” he revealed.

So the knights set sail in pursuit.

One of her trackers had found evidence of goblins along the beach-as well as more evidence that they had tried to cover up their tracks. He’d found no tracks since-the damnable rain had washed away the traces-though he’d spotted splintered branches on bunchberry bushes, indicating something had come that way. The chief tracker was several yards ahead of her, following signs she could not see. She fixed her eyes on the back of his tabard.

How much of a head start did the goblins have? She thought. A week? Two?

“Commander? A few words with you, please.”

She glanced to her right. The sorcerer who tromped up to her side was a slight man, only five and a half feet tall. His wrists and elbows were so bony that it looked like his skin had been stretched over his skeleton, yet he had an oddly pudgy face that reminded her of a bulldog.

“Yes, Isaam?”

The sorcerer was the only Dark Knight not wearing armor. His long, gray robes, not so neat and clean as usual, defined his arcane station. The sleeves had been pulled up to his shoulders and tied with cords, and the hem was frayed in a few places from catching on roots. The backpack Isaam wore had snagged vines and leaves, which dragged behind him and made swishing sounds. Bera reached behind him and tugged the backpack free. Isaam had been in Bera’s company for more than a decade.

“Commander, my divinations on the beach this morning yielded nothing. You realize that, don’t you? I found a trace of the goblins when I scried while we were at sea but nothing since. I tried to discuss this with you earlier. We might not be going in the right direction.”

Bera frowned but did not reply.

“My magic is strong, Commander, and it will not fail me. It has not failed me before. You know my determination. But something … I tried to tell you this earlier-”

“You will scry again when we stop for the night?”

“Of course, Commander.” The man opened his mouth to say something else then thought better of it. He fell in line behind Bera and bunched up his robe to keep from tripping on it.

“I am certain you will have better results this evening, Isaam. After you’ve eaten and rested.” Bera stuck out her lower lip and blew upward, chasing away more gnats. “After we’ve all eaten and rested our blistering feet. I have great faith in you.” She added softly, “Old friend.”

She’d been pushing the company for the better part of a few weeks-first south along the beach, where their longboats had come ashore, then east into the heart of the thick woods, following her tracker’s suggestion. The Qualinesti Forest was huge, and finding a mob of goblins and hobgoblins in it would not be an easy task necessarily. But Bera did not doubt she would meet with success eventually. She’d sent two more scouting parties ahead the previous day, both with skilled trackers.

“I hope your faith in me is well placed, Commander,” Isaam said. “And I hope we find the goblins soon. This is not my element.” The sorcerer was obviously struggling to keep up with her.

Bera continued to watch the tracker, who was ranging farther ahead; she glimpsed only a splotch of black from his tabard. They were looking for clues as to whether the goblins had passed that way. It had been some time without a sign. They could be going in circles and following a wild boar for all she knew.

“It is not my element either,” she whispered.

It could have been late afternoon or early evening when the tracker lost whatever trail he’d been pursuing. The forest was more shadows than light, and Bera’s men stumbled over roots and caught themselves on thorny branches. They were all in physically fine condition, but the pace and the terrain had worn them down.

The tracker shook his head. “Commander, there is nothing else I can see to follow today. Rather than proceed blindly, I’d like to stop here. In the morning, when the light is better, I might see something my tired eyes are missing now.”

“Very well, Eloy. We’ll resume in the morning.” Bera planted her fists against her waist and fixed him with a glare that told him it really wasn’t all right. “Stop for the day!” she called over her shoulder.

“Thank the gods,” Isaam muttered.

“There’s a clearing ahead, Commander. Not big enough for all of us, though.” Eloy shifted back and forth on the balls of his feet. “I caught sight of a stream there.” He gestured to the north. “About fifty yards.”

“Refill your skins,” Bera continued. “Wash and rest. Eloy, you and Virlan take a dozen men and find meat to supplement the evening meal.” Normally she would let her scout rest, but his failure to conquer the trail did not sit well with her. “Do not come back until you’ve secured enough meat to feed us all.”

He was quick to gesture to twelve fellow knights and disentangle himself from her icy gaze. Bows in hand, the squad melted into the foliage.

Minutes later, Bera was carefully folding her tabard on a rock. She removed her gauntlets and arm pieces, and after her men started settling nearby, she tugged off her breastplate and straightened the padded armor beneath. It was a signal to her men that they could remove their armor as well.

“May I join you?” Without waiting for a reply, Zoccinder stripped to his padded armor and sat next to her.

“They have several advantages over us, these goblins we pursue.” Bera wiped at a spot on her leggings. “Small, they can move more easily through these woods.”

“And they haven’t such heavy, hot armor to contend with.”

“Aye.” She offered him a thin smile.

Zoccinder was the most imposing knight in her unit, easily seven feet tall and heavily muscled. He looked wholly formidable in either a suit of plate mail or his sweat-stained pads. He’d arranged his armor carefully in front of him, the chest piece of which had bluing on it-something a highranking officer might wear, not someone of Zoccinder’s low rank.

Bera guessed he had some ogre blood in his veins, as he’d spoken the language to captives several weeks past. But he’d not claimed such a heritage in his records, so she kept her speculation to herself. He’d told her he was twenty-six years of age, but she believed him to be at least five years younger, as his face was boyish and unlined and he lacked the scars of someone who had served in the order longer. Twenty or twenty-one then, she decided. That would make her twice his age.

He rested his hand on her thigh.

“We will find them, Bera, these goblins who vex you.” He kept his voice low, his dark blue eyes fixed on hers. “Isaam or the trackers will find them. We will have them.” He pointedly addressed her by her first name, she noted, no longer as commander. “It should not take many days.”

“I detest them, you know, goblins. Horrible-smelling, hideous creatures that look vaguely like men. They chatter in a vile-sounding tongue that reminds me of wild dogs yapping.”

“They’re not wholly monsters, Bera. They do wear clothes, for example.”

She gave a clipped laugh. “What clothes I’ve seen them in hang in tatters.” She paused. “Many of them have eyes yellowed like they’ve got a disease.”

He didn’t say anything else but rested his battle-axe across his legs, the haft atop her knee. The weapon was singular, a keepsake from his grandfather, he’d claimed. It-and the blue-colored armor-proclaimed him as being from a family of some means, and his bearing bore that out. Isaam had whispered to Bera once that the Dark Knight’s axe reeked of magic. Bera figured that Zoccinder would tell her about the axe in good time.

That Zoccinder, who preferred to be called Zocci, had not risen up higher through the Dark Knight ranks was a sad testament to past behavior-that is, several recorded incidents of insubordination. Others would have been drummed out of the order for his offenses. However, he was a superb fighter and proficient in many languages. His courage and bloodlust were equaled in her unit only by her own. And he’d done nothing to gain a black mark on his record since joining her company.

“A walk, Bera? To that stream Eloy mentioned?”

She nodded and did not protest when he extended a hand to help her up. The other knights had been witness to the growing attraction between the pair, all wisely keeping silent. Zocci took his axe along.

The stream was barely in sight when he pulled her close and angled his head down to meet hers. His skin glowed with a thin sheen of sweat. She noted again that there wasn’t a blemish or scar on his handsome visage, despite the number of battles he’d been in during the past several months. He was pure, unspoiled.

And twice his age, Bera knew she was.

She had a husband and a grown daughter at home.

He kissed her like her husband never had, his lips at the same time dry and supple against hers and somehow in that instant sapping all the strength from her. His free hand cupped the back of her head.

She was his commander, a veteran Dark Knight, decorated where he had been demoted, praised where he had been reprimanded.

He was half her age.

The axe rested against his leg. His thumbs traced patterns on her neck, and after a moment, he raised his head and softly blew on her eyelids. She had lines at the edges of her eyes, a mark of her years on Krynn. Did he notice them? she wondered. Did he think about the years between them? Did her men?

She heard men splashing in the stream and suspected they could see her. A moment more and she didn’t worry about it as Zocci tugged her down behind a stand of lilies and onto a bed of ferns.

Isaam barely acknowledged Bera’s return to camp.

The sorcerer sat cross-legged, shoulders hunched and back humped like a man decades older; his concentration was directed at a small crystal globe nested in the folds of his robe in his lap.

His oddly thin fingers hovered above the crystal, darting down but never quite touching it, rising up, then flashing down again. His rhythmic gestures reminded Bera of a musician playing an instrument. His lips moved, but if he talked, she couldn’t hear him. There was the snap and pop of a large fire, over which five deer and a large boar were spitted, and the quiet conversations of groupings of knights. The venison filled her senses and made her realize she hadn’t eaten since the previous night. Zocci would bring her some.

“Isaam.”

The sorcerer nodded but did not look up.

Bera thought she saw tiny manlike images swirl in the crystal, which looked orange in the light of the fire. She concentrated to make out the images, but they were made indistinct in the shadows cast by Isaam’s head as he bent lower.

“What do you see, old friend? Goblins? Tell me you see goblins.”

Isaam did not reply, though his mouth and fingers moved even faster.

Bera stood silent for several moments, until Zocci came up to her side, strips of venison in a small wooden bowl that he handed her.

“It will take a while for all of the deer to cook, but this is a start.”

“A good start,” she told him, only briefly meeting his eyes. “Thank you.”

He stayed at her side until Isaam finally raised his head. Then Zocci politely retreated, and Bera sat down next the sorcerer. She held the bowl out, but Isaam shook his head.

“Later. The magic covers my hunger.”

“Did you see goblins?” Bera repeated louder. “In your crystal?”

“One,” Isaam said after a moment. “This time I saw one.” He wrinkled his nose in distaste. He’d made it clear on several occasions that he detested the creatures. “It is a bloodied one, and I saw it being carried by one of our brothers. He brings the unfortunate goblin to this camp. I touched his mind and guided him in this direction, as they’d lost their way in these old woods. They come despite the darkness.”

“Which party? Zeff’s?”

He gave a nod. “Zeff carries the goblin, and five men follow him. I sense they are pleased with their grubby prize, Commander. He will be here soon. My mind tugs him.”

Bera’s shoulders sagged. “Perhaps my other scouting party has misplaced itself as well. Can you search for them too?”

“In a while.”

A silence settled between the two, and for several minutes both of them stared at the crystal. Bera could barely make out the tiny form of a man, Zeff, carrying something-the bloodied goblin Isaam mentioned. The fuzzy images surrounding the pair were trees. There was another knight behind the first, and no doubt more. A glow came from over the shoulder of one, likely a torch. Bera wondered if Isaam saw it all in greater detail.

She chewed on the venison, finding it tough but delicious, given her hunger. She ate quickly and handed the bowl back to Zocci when he materialized.

“More, Bera?”

She nodded. “A bowl for Isaam too.”

When Zocci returned, he set Isaam’s bowl on the ground, as the sorcerer did not reach out a hand to take it, nor was he distracted from the crystal in his lap.

“Another walk, Bera?”

“Perhaps,” Bera returned a smile. “After I am finished here.” She stuffed another piece of venison in her mouth and licked her fingers clean of the juices. Zocci retreated only a few steps. “I knew your magic would not fail you, Isaam, old friend. I knew you merely needed to rest your feet and …”

Isaam looked away from the crystal, and his black eyes locked onto Bera’s. In that moment they no longer looked piglike and small, but terribly upset, troubled. The intensity of his gaze was disturbing and sent a shiver down her back.

“My magic failed earlier, Bera, but not because I was tired. It failed because something caused it to fail.” He kept his voice low, and she had to lean close to hear him better. “The goblins you seek obviously have magic too. Old and powerful magic, that much I know. They have magic so powerful that it blocks my attempts to scry upon them.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It is as if I want to look inside a house, but there are no windows and the door is tightly locked. Despite my best efforts, I cannot see inside.”

Bera’s mouth went dry, and she set the bowl of venison in her lap. “How can that be, Isaam? Tell me.”

“I can’t find them, Commander, these escaped slaves that you are so bent on recapturing. Oh, I see the one being brought here, and minutes before that, I spotted another one drinking by a stream lit by a reflected moon. But I can’t find the goblins in any number. I can’t find the ones from Steel Town. They are scored by scars from the mines and they wear the marks of whips. Easy to find, you would think, with my magic, especially given their numbers. But it is impossible, for some reason.”

“Grallik N’sera, the wizard who-”

“He is hidden too by the old magic.” Isaam drew his shoulders back and picked up the crystal, carefully placing it in a pocket of his robe. “I can feel the magic that blocks me, Bera, and I do not like the sensation, insects crawling on my skin. It is a smothering magic. It is not unlike a large cloak that obscures the details of its wearer.”

Bera nodded, as though understanding, but she did not quite, not really.

“It hides something, this very old magic. It hides the goblins. There is no other explanation for why I cannot find them.”

“Maybe Grallik is responsible.”

Isaam spit. “Grallik is a wizard of some renown but not enough to have given him a better station than Steel Town. Perhaps, however, he is more powerful than your reports indicate, and his posting was a punishment for something not in the records. He is more powerful than me, apparently.”

“I doubt that, old friend.”

Isaam dropped his chin to his chest. “Perhaps he did something to block my magic.”

One of the men started singing. Usually it was Zocci who did that first after an evening meal. But it was one of the older men; his voice was not as strong and deep, but the story of the song was good, about the Dark Knights’ victory in the Abyss.

“No, on second thought, no.” Bera shook her head, nearly upsetting the bowl of venison. “Grallik is not responsible for stopping you. If he had such magic, he would have used it when he first fled from Steel Town. We tracked him then, old friend. We found the port where he purchased ships to haul the goblins. Nothing blocked us then. We easily followed him to Schallsea Island too, as you know. And then we-”

“-lost him in these ancient woods,” Isaam finished. “Lost him and all of the Steel Town slaves.”

“Except the one Zeff has captured.” Bera’s hands formed fists, the nails digging into her palms. “Perhaps the goblin being brought here will have some answers for us at last.”

“One goblin?” Isaam chuckled.

“Then find a way around this magic, old friend. Lift the cloak, and put a window in this building you’re trying to look inside.” She picked up her bowl and rose, her eyes daggers aimed at something far beyond their campsite and her sorcerer companion. “Find them, Isaam. That’s an order.”

UMAY AND QEL

The dwarf baby cooed happily. She lay on her back on a patch of soft moss, Graytoes dribbling river water from a jug onto her stomach and taking a long time bathing her. The goblin shooed away small, bright beetles that crawled close as she softly sang an old war tune about a blood-soaked battlefield. She paused in midchorus and told Umay it was one of the few to which she could remember all the words and that it had been one of Moon-eye’s favorites. She started singing again.

“Grallik N’sera-” Her visitor coughed to get her attention and said, “Grallik N’sera,” again.

Graytoes stopped the song. “The hated wizard.” She spit the words out in the goblin language. “Grallik is with Thya, cutting down trees with his magic and-”

“I know where Grallik N’sera is. I just came from talking with him.” Qel knelt, looking between the dwarf baby and Graytoes. She spoke in the goblin tongue, which surprised Graytoes. But she got some of the inflections wrong, and Graytoes had to work at understanding her. “Grallik told me you stole this baby from a village in the Nerakan hills. Had I paid more attention earlier to what you carried, before we came to these woods, had I asked why you had such a child, I would have-”

“Done nothing. Qel would have done nothing.” Graytoes turned slightly away from the young human healer, pointedly ignoring her. She resumed singing until the ballad was finished, then she dribbled water in the baby’s coarse, black hair and twirled her fingers in it to gently massage the scalp.

“Beautiful Umay,” Graytoes said. She rocked forward and picked up the baby, wrapped her in a blanket, and held her close. “Graytoes’s Umay.”

The baby giggled and smiled.

“You stole her.” Qel’s voice had a gentle but distinctly accusatory tone. “I had not paid enough attention. With hundreds and hundreds of goblins, thousands, so much to do and look after, arriving in this forest, I simply did not notice or realize. But now I know. You should not have this child.”

Graytoes clutched the baby with one arm, and with her free hand pointed to her stomach. “There was a baby in here, Qel. Moon-eye’s baby. Graytoes’s baby. The Dark Knights killed that baby. Maybe the Dark Knights killed Moon-eye too. The Dark Knights kill everything. Now this is Graytoes’s baby. Umay, a good, good name. It means hope.” After a moment, she added, “This baby was not stolen. And never will be stolen.”

Qel touched Graytoes’s shoulder. The goblin shrugged off her hand. She made gurgling noises to Umay and scooted away when Qel touched her again.

“Qel, leave Graytoes alone. That is Graytoes’s baby.” Direfang stood over them, having approached so quietly that Qel hadn’t heard him. “Umay could not have a better mother.”

“The one you call Umay is a dwarf,” Qel said, rising to face Direfang. She had to look up catch his eyes. Qel edged around Graytoes so she could again see the baby, who continued to coo and giggle. “I had not been told earlier of the baby’s kidnapping.”

Direfang growled. “If that matter is such a bother, leave this city.”

Graytoes smiled at the words in her defense, but it was clear that Direfang was bluffing. Without Qel, broken limbs would not be mended; more goblins might die. He was posturing and Qel squared her shoulders and tipped her chin up higher in defiance. Graytoes pretended to pay no attention to them.

“The way to the beach is not difficult to find, Qel. Follow the river, and use whatever magic is necessary to find a ship and get back to Schallsea Island,” he continued. “Go if you must. Tell the healers there about this city.”

The healer glared at him, the hard expression ill suited to her otherwise soft features. “I suppose the baby cannot be returned to her home.”

Graytoes hummed softly, trying to mimic the song of a bluebird perched overhead.

“Listen to me, Qel. The baby has a good mother. Graytoes keeps Umay safe. And the baby is home.”

Qel crossed and uncrossed her arms then grabbed her tunic with her fingers, as if needing something to do with her hands. “I had thought perhaps it was an orphan, that baby, a straggler you picked up like Grallik N’sera and like the priest who remained on Schallsea when we left.”

“Horace.”

She nodded. “Yes, Horace, the big priest of Zeboim.”

Graytoes hummed faster then abruptly stopped. The bluebird flew away. It was common knowledge that Direfang preferred Horace over Qel. “Horace knows goblinspeak,” Graytoes said softly. “Wished Horace would have stayed with the goblin army and Qel would have stayed on her island.”

“What?” Qel asked. “I didn’t hear you.”

“Go back to that island, Qel,” Graytoes said louder. “Tell Horace to come here instead. Horace would not say such bad things about beautiful Umay.”

Qel shook her head. “A straggler, I thought the baby was an orphan, Foreman Direfang, and-”

“It is good Graytoes does not share your intolerance of other creatures,” Direfang said. “Graytoes loves Umay … even though Umay is a dwarf. And Umay seems to love Graytoes. There is a lesson there, Qel. And there will be no more talk of Graytoes or Umay.” He spun on the balls of his feet and headed toward the home of Sully and Rustymane.

“It is not intolerance that so festers in me,” Qel whispered. She spoke in the common tongue, and Graytoes could not understand more than a few words. “This is theft, a heinous crime to take that baby from her mother. The baby will grieve as it grows, and its mother will grieve forever. I never knew my mother.” The healer stared down at Graytoes, who continued to fuss over the baby, and finally she followed Direfang.

The hobgoblins’ home was one of the first finished using Mudwort’s design, and it was one of the tallest built so it could accommodate Rustymane and Sully and the recently arrived hobgoblin brothers Gralin and Neacha. Qel paused outside, having seen Direfang crouch and go through the entrance. They were talking in the goblin tongue, and she eavesdropped briefly. Sully was worried about food, and Rustymane and Direfang echoed his concern. Gralin and Neacha volunteered to establish regular hunting groups.

She thought about joining the hobgoblins in the discussion and took a step toward the doorway. There were several things she wanted to talk to Direfang about, and finding him alone had proved impossible lately.

“Later,” Qel decided. “When I am cooler and my thoughts are not so troubled by a baby dwarf.”

She padded away, glancing from hut to hut as she went, only a fraction of them finished. She couldn’t see how far the city extended, as clump birches and wide trunks blocked many of the buildings, and the site spread down the next rise.

It would take a long time to build enough homes for all the goblins there … and for the goblins she suspected would join them. She could hardly smell the forest for all the goblins. They had a mustiness about them that, while bearable, was certainly unpleasant.

The sounds of construction filled the air, the noise of hammers and axes and the constant buzz of goblin conversations birthing a headache that settled firmly above her right eye. Qel reached a hand up and massaged her temple, finding that only added to the aching.

“Damn me for coming here,” Qel cursed herself. “Damn me for not thinking this through. Impetuous fool!”

It wasn’t just the dwarf baby that bothered her. She was so terribly out of place. She walked past a goblin trio, all of them with mud-brown skin and one with a malformed foot. They chattered as they smoothed the inside of a depression, trying to make it larger and deeper. All of them paused and gawked at her when she stopped to watch them.

“Damn impetuous fool.” She stomped away as one of the goblins pointed a finger and laughed.

A youngling with yellow skin rushed toward her and tugged on her skirt. It jabbered so quickly, she had trouble picking out the words. It was merely talking about squirrels that were scampering in a big oak and wanting her to watch them.

“That’s nice,” she told it. “But I’m busy.” She spoke in Common, not bothering to pick through her mind to find the goblin words. She’d used her magic to learn their language, pulling the rudiments of it from her friend Orvago and planting them in her own mind. “Run now and watch them some more, the silly squirrels.”

Her frown sent it scurrying back to its clan members. She adopted a quicker pace, hoping to avoid more goblin encounters, while meandering through the growing city and searching. There was activity everywhere-goblins carrying wood, from logs that had them straining under the weight, to clumps of twigs that would be woven into roofs. On a patch of sandy ground, a few female goblins had corralled a group of younglings; it looked like a school of sorts. Even the eldest worked, most of them in a circle scraping at the undersides of animal hides.

“There. Thank the gods.” She fairly ran toward him.

Orvago stood on the highest point of the bluff, near the artful rock that Direfang had planted. He was staring down at the river, oblivious to her approach.

She brushed by a goblin asking her to treat his rash and hurried up the bluff. She yelled and waved, and he crooked his head and raised a pawlike hand.

“I’ve been looking for you.” She sucked in a great gulp of air and tried to catch her breath. “I need to …” Qel put her hand to her temple again, trying to hold back the throbbing in her head.

Orvago settled next to the stone spire, his head coming up to the top of it. “You need to what, Sister Qel?”

Up there the construction sounds were not so loud, and she could hear the river below. She slowed her breathing.

“I need to … I’d thought this important,” she said. Qel didn’t sit, despite his gesture that she should join him. She stood in front of him, shifting back and forth on her heels. She crossed her arms and thrust her hands beneath her armpits. It was a nervous gesture she’d never managed to shake. “I thought leaving Schallsea Island and joining the goblins was a calling.”

He rubbed his chin with the back of his hand, reminding her of how a dog in one of the island’s lyceums used to scratch its jaw.

“I’d never known a place beyond the island, Orvago. I was raised there since I was a child, an infant. Left there, I was told, by a passing ship’s captain.”

Orvago raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to continue.

“I thought I should see something of the world beyond the island. Some of the others agreed. You did too. Remember? You told me it was a good notion.”

The gnoll continued to regard her. She uncrossed her arms and swung them slowly at her sides.

“But I miss the company of …” She paused and drew her lips into a narrow line.

“Humans?” he finished for her.

She nodded. “I guess. I guess that’s it. I love you, Orvago. And you’re my only friend here. I-”

“-can make other friends,” he said. “You’re wrong. The goblins seem to like you.”

She closed her eyes, waited a moment, and willed herself to stand still. “Some of them like me, I think. And I don’t mind helping them, mending their wounds and tending to the pregnant ones. They are neither good nor evil, and I had expected them to be evil. They simply are.” She opened her eyes and let out a hissing breath as she looked to the sky. A small flock of dark blue birds was dipping down toward the river before disappearing into the pines on the other side. “I miss the island and the buildings and the people, Orvago. I miss climbing the Silver Stair. This work is important, I keep telling myself that. It really is important. It’s not that I mind the goblins. Despite everything, I really don’t mind them. They’re not the monsters I thought. But I don’t like this, being here, being away. Not at all.”

The gnoll rested back on his hands and craned his head up so he was looking directly overhead. “Schallsea Island is beautiful,” he admitted after a few minutes. “Nature sculpted by man. And at the same time nature left to flow its own course. The Singing Creak, the Tilawa Brook, the Pekun Stream.”

“The Zephyr Brook,” she added with a wistful smile. “Musical, that one, a never-ending song.”

“And the Mannewa River. Not quite as long as this nameless river, I would think. And a younger river, straighter and faster and impetuous. This one flows like an old man, wandering one way and then the next, taking its time to get where it’s going. But you know, I think I like this river better.”

She paced in a tight circle around him and ended with her back to the river. “The Barren Hills fill the center of Schallsea, reaching practically from one end to the other like the spine of a gentle sea beast rising from the water. I had to walk the length of them one summer. It was a very hot summer.”

They listened to the river and the construction sounds. From somewhere overhead came the shrill cry of a hunting bird.

“Schallsea is but an infant compared to these ancient woods,” the gnoll said. “It was a hilly plateau between mountain chains until the Cataclysm changed the world and the Newsea flooded so much that it formed our island home.”

“I know … and I miss it sorely,” she admitted.

“And you do not want the goblins to know this?”

“No, I don’t.” She turned to face the river. “No weakness. Showing weakness in front of them would not be good.” Tears filled the corners of her eyes. “But I am weak, Orvago. I do miss Schallsea. Maybe I was too young to leave. This is not so grand an adventure as I thought it would be.”

The gnoll’s face was unreadable.

“And I should not have talked to you about this. I should have kept my problems to myself.”

Something splashed in the river below, and the faint laughter of goblin children drifted up the bluff.

“I should not have-”

“You thought yourself an orphan, Qel. But you had family, on Schallsea. You can have family here too.”

“No. I want to go home, Orvago.”

GOBLIN HUNTERS

Zeff tossed the goblin into the center of the Dark Knight camp. It landed with a thud near the fire. Conversations instantly stopped and all eyes were on the wide-eyed creature that shook so hard in fear that its teeth clacked together.

Three more goblins followed, but they were corpses.

Bera and Zocci were on their feet, striding through the men toward the goblin, staring down on it and making it cower all the more.

“Commander.” Zeff was not a tall knight, but he looked imposing, even as haggard as he was from a long day’s march to reach the camp. Uncustomary stubble grew on his ruddy face, which he rubbed before snapping to attention. On first glance he looked thickset, but it was muscle, not fat, and it seemed more pronounced because of the armor. “We found four of them at first light this morning. A hunting party, obviously, they all carried crude spears. This one …” He indicated the one still breathing, “had clothes, looks like they belonged to a human child. Definitely stolen.”

“So a Steel Town goblin.” Bera bent to take a closer look at the captive.

It was hard to determine the color of its hide: gray or brown, she guessed, though it was so filthy, it probably could have been green under all of that. About two and a half feet tall, the little goblin had knobby wrists and ankles, like Isaam, she mused, and it had a small potbelly that could have been from lack of food. The three corpses looked similar.

The live one’s eyes were dark and fixed on hers. Its nose wiggled and the snot rivulets that ran from it gleamed in the firelight. The creature wore a shirt that at one time was pink or rose-colored. Tiny hearts and flowers were embroidered in darker thread along the collar and sleeves. The image of a kitten had been embroidered on the front, but the threads were so worn and torn that only half of the face was recognizable. It was clearly a human child’s garment.

“Good work, Zeff, Artis,” she said, nodding to the latter, a young knight who stood behind Zeff. Two more knights moved out from behind them, and Bera gestured that they should join the rest of the men for the evening meal. She never took her gaze off the goblin. “Creature,” she began. “You will tell me-”

Zeff cleared his throat. “Commander, we determined that this goblin does not understand the common tongue.

There was the softest of conversations from a group of knights who sat farthest from the fire. Mugs clinked, and she could hear men eating. Most of the knights were quiet, though, intent on what was transpiring. But there were so many knights, there was never complete silence in the camp.

“None of us know its foul language,” Zeff continued. “Dwarvish, I speak that; but the goblin is clueless there too. None of the goblins could understand us. We killed three of them in the trying.” He shook his head in frustration. “We couldn’t make any sense out of their gibberish. And we brought the bodies in case Isaam wanted to try to speak to them. We know he can talk to the dead sometimes.”

Bera looked even closer and discovered the cowering goblin was missing the toes on its right foot, and that the stumps had been cauterized. There were more burn marks on its legs, and its left arm was broken. She saw a jagged cut on the side of its neck, all evidence that her men had questioned the creature for some time and gained nothing. Despite the strong odor of the deer and the sweat-stained clothing of her men, she could smell the stench of the goblin, the urine that had run down its legs, its burned hair and skin, crusted blood. Her mouth was filled with the venison she’d just finished eating, her stomach threatening to bring it up.

“Zocci.” She looked away from the goblin and edged a few paces back, drawing better air into her lungs. “Talk to it. I want to know.”

Zocci stepped closer and knelt next to the goblin, the strong reek of it seeming not to bother him. He started speaking before Bera could finish her order. That was something that bothered her about him … that he would take charge of a situation too soon. It was not insubordination exactly, nothing as serious as that. She turned her head and drew in another deep breath of better air. Isaam watched her, keeping a good distance back. Bera was beginning to share his utter loathing for goblins.

Zocci talked faster, his deep voice sounding guttural and his string of words punctuated by growls and clicks. She knew he wasn’t speaking goblinspeak, as he hadn’t yet mastered that language. He had told her he was fluent in the ogre tongue, however, which most goblins knew a bit.

The conversation of the knights died, everyone wanting to hear the primitive discourse between Zocci and the goblin. The fire continued to pop softly, and Bera concentrated on the scent of the deer, her stomach easing and the bitterness leaving her mouth.

“His name is Ochlorn,” Zocci translated.

“I don’t care what he’s called,” Bera said.

“He and his dead fellows were hunting when Zeff found them.”

Zocci spoke to the goblin again, the conversation going on too long for Bera. She twisted the ball of her foot into the ground. “Zoccinder.” Using his full name demonstrated her fury. “I want to know where the rest of the goblins are … and the traitor Grallik N’sera.”

Zocci continued his interrogation, stopping when it looked as though Bera would say something else. “Ochlorn was with his entire clan, which apparently was a dozen. Eight of them managed to flee before Zeff and Artis grabbed these four and began questioning them. Ochlorn said they couldn’t understand your knights. Then the torture and killing started.”

“Just ask him about Grallik and the Steel Town slaves.”

“He doesn’t know anything about them,” Zocci cut back. “Apparently the clan came to these woods answering some call through the earth. He said one of his fellows there”-Zocci pointed to the three dead goblins-“was a shaman and heard the stones in the earth talking. This was weeks ago. The shaman,” he paused, and Bera realized he stopped himself from giving her the shaman’s name, “apparently talked the clan into following him from the Plains of Dust across the dwarf mountains and into these woods. He said other goblin clans were answering the call too. He was waiting for the stones in the earth to talk again and tell them where they should go next. But Zeff found them and killed the shaman first.”

Bera sighed, blowing a hank of hair out of her eyes. She motioned Isaam to come closer. “Old friend, you must use your magic to find my other scouting party. Perhaps they had better success than capturing one pitiful goblin.”

Zocci stretched out a hand and gently touched the goblin’s face. “This fellow knows not a thing about the slaves we’re hunting, Commander.”

“You can’t possibly believe that, Zoccinder. The goblin’s from Steel Town. An escaped slave. He wears clothes from a Steel Town child, Zocci. He’s lying and-”

“Commander, the goblin is in too much pain to lie. He could have found the shirt anywhere.” Zocci spoke to the goblin again, the words coming fast and sounding like an animal growling.

As Bera drew Isaam closer and whispered, hushed conversations from the watching knights started up around them.

“The earth talking? To goblins? Is it possible, Isaam? Maybe Grallik has some spell he’s using to summon the goblins.”

The sorcerer shook his head. “That is no magic I know of, Commander. And I can’t imagine why Grallik N’sera would want to collect these wretched things. If that goblin is not lying, perhaps Zoccinder isn’t translating well enough. Perhaps the words are getting all mixed up.” Isaam raised an eyebrow and avoided Bera’s glare.

“This fellow here,” Zocci said, turning away from the whimpering goblin and raising his voice, “truly knows nothing of Steel Town, Commander. And he doesn’t know anything about escaped goblin slaves, I say again. He believes that the stones in the earth have your answers, that the shaman listened to the earth and brought them here. And that is all he knows.”

Bera spit and balled her hands into fists. To Isaam, she said, “I’ve never asked you to speak to the spirits of dead goblins, and I won’t now.”

“I do not ken their language,” Isaam said. “My dark magic would yield nothing I could understand.”

“Would that I understood them, the accursed, wretched rats,” Bera added. “And not just their ugly-sounding tongue. Would that I understood why they insist they came halfway across the world from Steel Town to these woods. Why didn’t they simply join the goblin nation of Sikk’et Hul in Northern Ergoth? It would have been closer. Why not Sikk’et Hul?”

“I will find your other scouting party,” Isaam said simply. He reached into the pocket of his robe for the crystal.

Bera ground her teeth together, her gaze shifting between Isaam and Zocci. Her orders were to track down the goblins that had escaped from Steel Town in the aftermath of the earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. It wasn’t that the goblins were all that valuable to the Order; plenty of goblins could be purchased from the ogres and minotaurs in Neraka and to the south. The knighthood simply could not allow escaped slaves to go free. They had to be made examples of, and word of their recapture and execution had to be spread in all the countries where the Dark Knights maintained slaves and strongholds.

The knighthood could not allow its image to be tarnished or its authority challenged by the escape of such pitiful creatures. The Order simply could not accept such insubordination.

“You truly believe this thing?” Bera asked Zocci. “You are wholly certain the rat tells you the truth?”

“Aye, Commander. It is not capable of lying at the moment. Perhaps if Artis and Zeff had not been so quick to torture the goblins, the shaman might still be alive to tell us more.”

“And we might have better information.” Bera turned her back to Zocci and the goblin, peering into the darkness.

“Wendal? Wendal!” She gestured to a half-elf. “Bring the prisoner here.” She spun to face Zocci, listening to the shuffling steps of the prisoner they’d taken on Schallsea Island. “Horace, do you recognize this goblin?”

Wendal shoved Horace forward. The prisoner was an Ergothian who had once been a Dark Knight. A priest in Steel Town, Grallik had lured him into escaping with the goblins. It had not taken much convincing. There was no trace of Horace’s former station. He was dressed in a simple tunic, bloodstained on the sleeves and along the collar from his rough handling. Though still a portly man, he’d lost considerable weight, and his clothes sagged on him.

“I … said … Horace, do you recognize this goblin?” Bera asked. “Or do they all look the same to you, even though you kept their company for so many weeks?”

He was half propped up by Wendal and another knight, chains weighing at his arms. “I do not recognize this goblin, Commander Kata. But in truth I could not possibly know all the Steel Town goblins by sight.” His face was puffy and bruised, and it looked as if his eyes were closed because they were so swollen. But she knew he could see the goblin.

“Grallik N’sera, then,” she continued. “Once your brother in the Order, Horace, now a traitor like you. Let us talk about him. What magic does he have that lets him talk through the earth? And why would he summon goblins to these woods?”

He shook his head pathetically, and his knees buckled, his legs giving out. Wendal and the other knight hoisted him straight.

“Grallik has no such magic,” Horace answered. He paused, and in the silence Bera read his battered face. “But you know who does, Horace.”

He gave a defeated nod.

“Tell me. Because you once were a Dark Knight and once swore the oath of fealty, tell me.” She steepled her fingers under her chin. “Because you once were loyal and trusted, decorated. And because if you don’t help us, I will kill you.”

“A little female goblin called Mudwort, Commander. She talks through the earth, and she calls the goblins.”

Bera’s eyes gleamed triumphantly. She nodded to the others, dismissing Horace, who was dragged away. “We will find this Mudwort,” Bera hissed. “We will find the traitor Grallik N’sera. Then we will find them all.”

WORRIED TREES

What is this about?” Direfang was standing behind Orvago, who knelt at the trunk of one of the massive weeping willows. The wind was strong and blew the veil of leaves, making it sound as if it were raining. But the wind and the shushing of the leaves were not loud enough to drown out the sounds of construction that continued in the goblin city. “What are-?”

“I am talking to this tree, Foreman Direfang,” the gnoll returned. “That is what this is about. Would you like to know what it tells me?”

Direfang shook his head and batted at a large, annoying fly that had found its way under the veil. “Talking to a tree?”

“You don’t believe I can talk to trees, do you?” The gnoll made a sound that Direfang figured was a laugh. “No, I’m not wasting my time, Foreman. I’ll help the others with building when I’m through here. But I’d like to finish this conversation first.”

“Mudwort talks to rocks. It is why the goblins came to this forest. The rocks said this would be a good place.” Direfang studied the gnoll. He still couldn’t tell how old the creature was. In its middle years, he guessed, not because of its appearance-he’d never seen another gnoll before for comparison-but because of its patience and wisdom, things beyond the grasp of youth. And he doubted Orvago was very old; the gnoll did not walk with a shuffling gait and seemed to possess good hearing and keen eyesight. “Mudwort talks to rocks. Thya too. So now Orvago talks to trees.” He paused. “What does this tree say?”

“That it has seen much,” the gnoll replied quickly. His hairy fingers traced a whorl on the trunk. “It was small when there was no bluff, when the river was deeper and wider and faster, in those days flowing near this tree’s roots. Young and angry and straight the river was in those years. The tree saw elves ply the river, though it did not have such a name for those folk. Names came when it had grown taller and wiser and learned to listen to the creatures around it. Fair-skinned and fair-haired, the elves took great care of the trees in this area. And a few of them talked to this very tree, as I am doing now.”

Direfang stepped closer and studied the trunk. The cracks in the bark looked almost like the visage of a wolf. He blinked, and the visage-whatever he thought he had seen-disappeared. He didn’t doubt that the tree talked, in some sense, but he found the talk of trees and elves and the river useless.

“The tree says there was a fire on the other side of the river long, long ago. It was caused by lightning when there had been a dry spell. So many trees died, and the elves planted new ones.” Orvago pressed his ear to the bark. “Not the small pines you see now, but other oaks the elves planted. There was more than one fire south of the river, the land scarred, and not just by acts of nature. The small pines are from after the last great blaze.”

The gnoll talked for quite some time about these elves who had grown older and moved on. Direfang got the impression that well more than a century had passed since the tree had sprouted. That the tree was old impressed the hobgoblin, but its translated prattle bored him.

“And now the tree worries,” Orvago said. “Its roots fairly tremble in fear. It speaks to the grass and the ferns and the trillium, and what they have to tell is unsettling. The rustling of the leaves in the breeze are the whispers that pass between the trees. To the north, Foreman Direfang, something is stirring. The plants say something brews there.”

Finally, the conversation interested him. “A storm? Elves returning?”

The gnoll gave a shrug. “The tree doesn’t know what troubles the ferns or the trillium, but it worries nonetheless.”

Direfang batted at the fly again and turned to leave the gnoll with the monotonous willow that spoke fearfully of the future. “Then let it worry alone. There is much work to do.”

“The gnoll says the trees are nervous.” Direfang was talking to himself, though Draath obviously thought the words were meant for him.

“Cannot talk to trees,” Draath said. “Can talk to the earth. Not as well as Mudwort, though. Mudwort is a fine stoneteller.” He sat in front of Direfang’s spire, right hand on one of the shrunken elf heads dangling from his belt. The diminutive features of one head looked especially delicate, and the hobgoblin wondered if that shrunken head had belonged to a female.

“This stone talks too, Direfang,” Draath continued. “Talks loudly through all the woods, shouts loudly.”

Direfang placed a hand on the top of the spire, thinking he might feel something other than the coolness that never warmed to his touch. He couldn’t hear the shouting of the spire any more than he heard the weeping willow. “What does this stone say, Draath?” The hobgoblin wanted the stone to say something important since he had gone to all the trouble of digging it up and then carrying it so far, only to plant it again.

“It says stay away.”

Goblin younglings yelped and laughed as they raced by along the bluff, kicking up dirt that was taken by the wind. They spooked a plump, ground-nesting bird that screeched at them before it dived over the edge and rose above the river. The wind gusted stronger and sent the reeds bending to the ground.

“Stay away? It says stay away? From it?”

Draath shook his head, rubbed his hands together, raised a finger, and traced symbols that none of the others had been able to understand. Direfang felt suddenly old, tired.

“This is very ancient, Direfang. Older than elves, probably.” He paused. “Hate elves.” He thunked his thumb against the largest of the shrunken heads and continued. “Not words, these marks on the rock, but magic strokes. It is like casting a spell onto a rock so the spell will be there forever. Understand?”

The hobgoblin scratched his head. Yes, he nodded. What did Draath think, that he was one of the laughing, playing children who didn’t understand plain talk?

“The spell strokes on the stone protect this land. All the land around this stone. Mudwort, Thya, they scry through the earth, seeing things far away from here. This stone and its magic do not mind that. Mudwort can still call goblins. But if Mudwort and Thya were elsewhere, they could not look through the earth to see this place. That the stone would not allow. It is like looking out from the opening of a cave, but not being able to peer inside.” He made a huffing noise. “It says stay away. The stone lets spells go out, Direfang, it lets Mudwort call and summon. But it doesn’t let spells come in.”

“But more goblins-”

“Can find this place, yes, but only if they look with their eyes and not with their magic. It does not let any magic in.”

“It says stay away?” Direfang nodded; that was just what the hobgoblin leader intended to do for a while. Direfang plucked the axe out of his belt and headed north. There were a few more trees nearby that the gnoll had marked for cutting.

He intended to think about what Draath and Orvago had said, and perhaps with effort he would better understand about the nervous, fearful tree and the stone that blocked magic only some of the time. At least the stone was somehow important; that validated the trouble the hobgoblin had gone to toting it there.

Direfang wanted to tell Mudwort about what Draath had said. But he hadn’t seen her for a while. She was probably digging earth bowls for more homes, as he’d asked. She was probably working spells with Thya and-

No, he spotted Thya over there with Grallik, Sully, and a Skinweaver whose name he couldn’t recall. The foursome was digging bowls together, with Sully helping to fit posts into holes, as the hobgoblin possessed no magical abilities.

No Mudwort.

He fought a surge of anger. True, he’d been pushing her too far. As long as he’d known her, she’d been a loner, however, and back in the mines of Steel Town, she liked to go off in a corner and work by herself. In the slave pens, she would stake out her own corner where the others left her alone. Then, they feared her magic. In their goblin city, though they embraced her magic, she hadn’t wholly embraced them.

So Mudwort was probably off alone somewhere, and he probably should resist the urge to look for her and yell at her. He needed her help with the city, and he wanted her around because he valued her counsel. And he worried that if he pushed her too much, she might leave.

Worried like the willow worried? he wondered.

His route took him past Fernwold clan members, who were struggling to make a home like Mudwort’s. They cursed and shoved at each other, and Direfang guessed it was taking them twice as long to get the work done because they didn’t get along and cooperate. He paused to watch them, stepping close enough that the clan leader noticed him. The arguments stopped and they began working in concert, as though to impress him with their model behavior. Direfang stood there, watching for several minutes, then walked away. He heard the cursing resume.

The clans weren’t all so difficult to manage. The ones that came with Direfang from Steel Town seemed to possess a greater urgency for building a city. They had been slaves once; they understood the idea of freedom and their own place to live. In the course of a day, several homes had been nearly finished, goblins scurrying around the exteriors, applying more river clay to mortar the logs in place, more goblins weaving a tight mesh of vines, cattails, and branches to form a roof … some of them mortaring the roof too. They were built by ex-slaves.

The air buzzed with activity and song. Jando-Jando sang raspingly as he worked on the roof of Graytoes’s home. Direfang recognized the tune and words as something Moon-eye used to sing, and he wondered if Graytoes had taught it to him.

He missed Moon-eye … and many other goblins who had been lost along the way-some to fierce creatures, others to the rumbling mountain, many to the plague and the Newsea. Their escape from the Dark Knights’ mining camp and their trip to the Qualinesti Forest had exacted a heavy toll.

“Too many dead,” Direfang muttered to himself as he leveled his axe and began chopping. A shiver danced through him. The willow had told Orvago it was worried. “How many more will die?”

“Fire!” someone shouted suddenly in the goblin tongue. “Fire! Fire! Fire!”

CONFLAGRATION

Flames shot up from a nearly finished home, black smoke roiling off the roof and obscuring the lower branches of the maples nearby. Direfang raced toward the blaze, ordering gawkers out of his way, and noticing two other homes were also afire.

The goblins couldn’t hear Direfang bellow over the crackle of the flames and the shouts of those who were trying to put it out-but instead were fanning it with their dumb tactics.

“Fire!” Keth hollered. The goblin was perched on the shoulders of a hobgoblin, gesturing wildly to the south where three more homes could be glimpsed burning.

“Grallik!” Direfang yelled as loud as he could, his voice cracking. The wizard must have done this, he thought. There’d been no lightning strikes to cause it, and there’d been no cookfires burning that he’d seen. Grallik had finally betrayed them.

The hobgoblin muscled his way through a throng that was panicked and dumbfounded-whimpering, shouting, trembling, awestruck. Most stood still, caught up in their disbelief and amazement and unable to move. But a few were throwing useless handfuls of dirt on the home that was almost wholly consumed. Three younglings struggled with a large wolf hide, using it to try to bat out the flames, causing them to spurt higher.

Direfang barked orders to get everyone working together.

“Meda’s home!” a frail male goblin cried. Direfang saw the goblin drop to the ground, sobbing. “Meda burns!” He covered his face with soot-streaked hands.

Direfang scooped up handfuls of dirt when he got close enough, hurling them at the fire and still crying out Grallik’s name. A goblin also throwing dirt shook his head.

“The wizard did not do this,” the goblin said. He said something else, but his words were lost in the flurry of activity.

Out of the corner of his eye, Direfang saw goblins pull the frail goblin back from the fire. He’d been crawling toward the flames, ready to immolate himself, calling for Meda. The intense heat reminded Direfang of the mountains they’d traveled through when the volcanoes erupted. The fire spit at them as more goblins tried frantically to put it out, embers striking their hands and faces, the smoke puffing away in all directions and choking them.

“This one is lost!” Direfang called. He had little strength in his choked voice, and the goblins near him repeated his statement until it was a refrain washing through the crowd.

More than half surged away, and Direfang was swept up with them, moving to the next fire. Direfang grabbed Nkunda. “Grallik. Go find Grallik.” Nkunda ignored him, and Direfang released him, spotting Gnasher over a sea of goblin heads. “Grallik!”

Gnasher nodded, forcing his way out of the mass toward Direfang. Then they both were throwing dirt on another home, others were grabbing blankets and skins and swatting at the flames. Only a few were successful, as most of those with blankets only seemed to give the fire more air to feed on.

Sweat pooled in Direfang’s eyes as he moved close and tugged off his tunic. He tried using his tunic to smother the flames, urging goblins and hobgoblins to copy him. Fire raged up the walls of a home that had been half finished, a hobgoblin home from the height of it. The stench of burning wood and thatch and of a few wolf pelts that had caught fire filled his mouth. Drawing a clean breath was impossible. Some of the goblins at his side were overcome, dropping and being pulled back by others. More filled in the gaps, stepping up with handfuls of dirt. One scooted close and upturned a jug of water on the base of a wall. Several applauded his effort.

“Where is Mudwort?” Direfang cursed. Perhaps the shaman could have wielded her magic to bring the earth up and put out the fire. “Thya!” he screamed, jabbing at Keth, who had come up behind him with his mate. “Find Thya!”

Keth’s expression was blank. “Don’t know Thya.”

“Don’t know Thya,” Cari echoed.

Direfang thrust his tunic at her, and she immediately grabbed it and started swatting it at the fire. The hobgoblin threaded his way through the goblins, directing them to spread out to the other fires. All but a few were quick to follow his orders. The smoke was getting thicker, the pops from the flames louder. He wiped at his eyes and searched for familiar faces as he went: Thya, Draath, and Mudwort above all. Nothing. They were all missing.

He looked over the goblins’ heads, searching for Grallik and finally spying the wizard not far away near a burning wall. Anger filled Direfang’s heart, and his feet churned over the ground as he rushed toward the suspicious-acting wizard. Fire was flowing from Grallik’s fingers, striking the ground near the base of the wall and sending up a steady whoosh of flames.

So the wizard had started the fires!

Direfang reached for the axe on his belt, fingers squeezing the handle so tightly, it was hurtful. He raised the axe and meant to hurl it but stopped himself just as he saw the fire along the wall die when it was touched by Grallik’s flames. The wizard, apparently oblivious to Direfang’s near-attack, moved quickly to the next wall and repeated his smothering spell.

Direfang stared. The wizard was doing his best to stop the fires. Something else had caused the conflagration. Almost disappointed, he turned his attention back to finding Thya and Draath. He would confront Grallik later and see what he knew.

Goblins continued to battle the blazes all around Direfang. To his right, he saw flames lick up the trousers of a hobgoblin, who was quick to drop to the ground and roll in the dirt before he suffered too badly. Others also were being burned when they ventured too close. He saw Qel tending one of them.

The scene was a blur of color, the orange and red flames, and the gray, brown, and yellow of goblins and hobgoblins working to limit the destruction. The spreading smoke melded everything, making it look like a watercolor painting that had been caught in the rain. Direfang blinked furiously to see better and to make sense of everything he saw.

A group of Fishgatherers had managed to put out one fire using jugs of water. More of their clansmen were beating at a small fire that had spread to a pile of thatch. There were tiny fires here and there along the ground where twigs had been pulled from branches and set aside for thatching. Direfang, stepping too close to one, finally caught a glimpse of Thya.

Ignoring the burning pain that shot up his leg, the hobgoblin leader thundered toward her. She was keeping well back from the conflagration, directing her clansmen to attack the smallest fires, where they might have the most success.

“Thya!” Direfang dropped to his knees and pulled her down with him, grabbing her arm and pressing her hand against the ground to dramatize his point. “Use the magic, Thya.”

Her eyes grew wide with understanding. “S’dard!” A heartbeat later her hands sank into the dirt, and the ground rippled away from her and toward a burning home. The earth churned over clumps of leaves and twigs that would have been more kindling, helping keep at least one of the fires in check.

Direfang jumped up, brushed the flames from his clothing, and went looking for Draath, his eyes scanning goblin belts in the hopes of spotting tiny black elf heads. All that smoke and thousands of goblins, but Direfang could not see a single Skinweaver. He knew he was fortunate to have spotted Thya.

There was another loud whoosh, and Direfang spun in time to see Grallik create a line of fire that rose parallel to an engulfed wall. With a gesture, the wizard moved his line closer to the fiery wall, and there was the sound of an explosion when the two walls of fire clashed, snuffing each other out.

Then the hobgoblin spotted Orvago, clearing brush away and pointing toward a small home, over which it began to rain.

“More magic,” Direfang muttered, and it was of a sort he’d not seen before. “Would that the gnoll could make it rain everywhere.”

A dozen Boarhunters were helping the gnoll clear brush on the ground around their homes, where the fires had not yet reached.

Jando-Jando darted past Direfang, holding Umay, and for a moment the hobgoblin worried that Graytoes had been caught in one of the fires. He whirled, his hand batting away the smoke. No, Graytoes was with Thya, helping her send dirt toward a burning home.

“Mudwort!” Direfang called one last time. “Draath!” He knew his voice was lost in the cacophony. Giving up on them, he rushed toward the closest blaze and joined in the fight against it.

The hobgoblin couldn’t tell how much time passed. It felt like forever, the heat and ash burning his lungs and making his arms and legs feel like lead weights. Water streamed from his eyes, and he worked unsuccessfully to bring saliva up in his dry throat. He knew his fellows fared no better, so he kept at it despite wanting to get as far away as he could from the heat and flames.

“City is cursed!” Direfang heard a yellow-skinned goblin shout. “A storm and now fires. S’dards to build here. S’dards to build anything!”

Though most of the goblins around him stayed quiet and focused on their fire fighting jobs, the words echoed and a few agreed volubly.

“S’dard Direfang for wanting a city at all!”

The wind made everything worse. As the goblins got one fire under control, gusts swept in and whirled embers in the direction of other homes. The heat from the fires generated their own wind too, pushing fingers of hot air higher and all around, cooler air rushing in beneath and making sparks fly.

The sheer number of goblins made for chaos. As goblins dropped from all the smoke, more hurried in to carry the hurt ones away and replace them. Orvago had to give up on creating his miniature rain clouds and focus on the injured with Qel.

At last Draath appeared, working his earth magic to help smother the smaller fires, while a few of his Skinweaver clansmen added their energy to spells that seemed finally to tip the balance.

Direfang tottered but stayed on his feet and refused to quit.

“Winning,” he told a Flamegrass clansman next to him, close to another burning home. “Finally winning.”

The goblin shook his head despairingly. “Winning what? This city is lost, Direfang.”

Direfang growled. “Never lost,” he argued. “Never give up. Never-”

“Dragon!” someone shouted.

GREEN DEATH

The dragon was at the same time beautiful and terrifying. It was myriad shades of green, lighter on its back, darker on its belly-which the goblins could see plainly as it swooped down from across the river and hovered above the bluff. Its scales were the size of small shields and glistened as if the dragon had been drenched in the rain. Its wings were scalloped like a bat’s, the membranes beneath nearly black, like its talons. Its neck was long and serpentine, and covered with scales that ranged from the jade of a sugar maple to pale green of a honey locust. All of it was huge, the dragon’s head larger than a bear.

As goblins screamed in terror, it opened its maw, showing a row of long, white, dripping teeth, unrolling a forked scarlet tongue, and letting loose with a roar that sent the ground to shaking. Full-moon eyes cut by a slice of black surveyed the fire-ravaged city and the goblins scurrying in all directions. Another roar emerged, flattening its spines that ran from the tip of its snout to the end of its tail. The dragon dived, claws outstretched and noxious gas expelling from its cavernous mouth.

The green cloud of gas mingled with what was left of the smoke from the fires, glittering sickly olive and yellow and wholly obscuring the goblins blanketed in it. The cloud stank, and virtually all the goblins in the near vicinity pitched into coughing fits that had them doubled over and rubbing at their eyes.

Direfang was on the fringe, managing to hold his breath just as the dragon roared. He blinked furiously, his eyes stinging and throat burning worse than before, worse than ever. He felt as if he were drying up from the inside out as he whirled in confusion and inadvertently sucked in a lungful of the caustic stuff.

Others who had been standing near him, arguing over the status of the goblin city, were running frantically, their feet slapping across the ground. A few fell and were trampled by their fellows.

“Stop!” Direfang cried, but his voice was a coarse whisper from inhaling the noxious gas. “Stop!” The order was meant partly for himself, and still, like the others, he ran. He tripped over an exposed root when he passed an old oak, trying to catch himself as he plowed into the ground. The impact knocked the air from his lungs.

Hands pulled at him, and he stumbled to his feet. He was tugged behind the oak, panting and rubbing furiously at his eyes. Catching his breath, he reached for the axe at his side, intending to dash back toward the noxious cloud and save anyone trapped under it. He couldn’t budge, though; his feet were effectively fastened to the spot, his legs trembling.

“It’s called dragonfear,” said Grallik. The wizard had been the one to grab him. “The great beasts exude it. A second skin, the fear, though I’ve been told they can suppress it if they want.”

Direfang’s chest heaved, and still he rubbed at his eyes.

“It probably saw the fire,” Grallik continued matter-of-factly. “Curious, it must have flown over and discovered a meal spread out all over this bluff and beyond.”

Bone-chilling screams reached the wizard and Direfang. The dragon roared again, and they heard the thunderous sound of its clawed feet striking the ground, plucking up victims.

“How do we fight this … dragonfear?” Direfang managed to gasp.

Goblins raced past them, more falling and being trampled, some trying fleetingly to look brave and defiant, but then giving in and rushing headlong as fast as their legs could pump. The screams were mixed with the sound of the dragon feasting.

“Wizard … how to fight this?”

“I don’t know,” Grallik said. Sweat ran down his face and soaked his shirt. His blond hair, blackened by the smoke and soot, was plastered against his head; he looked pale and exhausted, defeated. “I’ve been trying. But I’ve no spells to combat it. Not like Horace had.”

“So … the fires … attracted the dragon.” Direfang’s hands dug into the bark behind him. He closed his eyes tight and tried to breathe slower, thinking furiously. Still, the screams slammed into him, and still, his legs shook. “The fires …”

“I didn’t start them, Foreman. I know that was your first suspicion. But in your heart, you know that isn’t true.” Grallik poked his head out around the tree, looking for the dragon, seeing nothing but chaos. “We’ll all die here, you know. We can’t fight a dragon. Not one of that size, no matter how many goblins are here.” He sucked in air and swung back around to hide behind the tree. “The gods’ joke, Foreman, bringing death to me here. I should have died in Steel Town. Saved myself the trouble of this arduous trip. All this way, just for death.”

With that speech, lengthy for him, Grallik pushed away from the tree and drew his hands up in front of his face, lips working feverishly as he began to bring down a great gout of flame. Staring in wonder, Direfang peeked around the tree, seeing Grallik’s column of fire rush to strike the dragon’s head. Goblins caught in the beast’s mouth were instantly incinerated. More goblins were caught under its front claws, some of them burning, one screaming. Direfang recognized poor Cari.

“How do … we fight … this … fear?” Direfang took a deep breath, inhaling chlorine mixed with the scents of burned goblins, burned homes, and the dragon’s stench. The hobgoblin spit and spit, trying to clear the redolent mix out of his mouth as he made a decision. He jumped up and dashed around the tree, straight toward the huge monster, pulling his axe free with one hand and reaching for a long knife at his side with the other.

He screamed as he ran-a lunatic sound that drew the dragon’s attention. The maw opened again, and the dragon inhaled, sounding like all the air from the goblins’ sprawling city was being sucked into its lungs. Direfang knew another cloud of chlorine gas was coming his way, and he held his breath.

At the same time, another whoosh of Grallik’s flame struck the dragon’s head. Its tail flailed like a whip, batting away Boarhunters who were darting in to battle it. The force of the tail sent goblins flying against trees and past Direfang, who was getting close. The dragon’s neck snaked out, jaws snapping with fetid breath. Direfang raised both weapons just as its leg muscles bunched and propelled the creature into the air. Its wings flapped, the wind flattening everyone on the bluff.

Direfang had dropped his axe and knife, but he was quick to grab them up again.

“Cari!” Keth hobbled toward his mate, using a branch to help him walk; his right leg was twisted and useless.

“Cari! Cari! Cari!”

With one glance, Direfang could tell Cari was dead, her small chest crushed and head twisted at an unnatural angle. Dozens of goblins lay dead and broken or charred. Dozens more were injured-broken limbs from either the dragon or being trampled by their clansmen, skin blistered from the horrid gas, most rubbing at their eyes. Two hung limp from low branches, where they’d been propelled by the sweep of the dragon’s tail. Qel was tending the hobgoblin Sully; a piece of flesh hung loose from his arm, and it appeared she was trying to reattach it.

Direfang looked up. The sky was clear and cloudless, and there was no sign of the green beast. “Gone,” he rasped. “Grallik’s fire chased it away.” He looked for the wizard, wondering if he had survived, and quickly spotted Draath at Grallik’s side.

The wizard was on his hands and knees, retching and shaking. His clothes and hair were drenched, and as Direfang ran toward them, he gagged on the overwhelming smell of chlorine. The dragon had breathed that way before it launched itself skyward, and Grallik had taken the brunt of its final attack.

Direfang helped Grallik to his feet. The wizard’s face glistened, his eyes were puffy and rimmed with red. It looked like the scars on his left cheek were blistered afresh. “Chased away the dragon,” Direfang muttered awkwardly. It was as close to a thank-you as he would give the half-elf wizard.

Grallik’s head bobbed and he wiped at his lips. “Too big of a dragon, Foreman, for my fire to defeat.”

Suddenly it began to rain on Grallik and Direfang, Draath quickly stepping out of the way. The water felt good, and the hobgoblin held his face straight up into it, breathing deeply, opening his mouth and swallowing as much water as he could. The wizard tipped his head up too, nodding toward Orvago, who had supplied the miniature cloudburst. It didn’t heal but it helped.

“I hurt the dragon, Foreman,” Grallik continued, pausing to gulp a swallow of the rain. “But I didn’t hurt it much. The dragon was too big, a very old one, from the size of it. It’ll return.”

“Didn’t die in Steel Town,” Direfang mused. “Didn’t die here.”

“Not yet anyway.” That came from Orvago as the rain stopped and he padded closer, carefully eyeing Grallik. “You hurt the dragon, like you said, but I can’t imagine that you hurt it enough to scare it off permanently.” He waved a hand behind him, indicating the droves of goblins slowly returning.

Their incredulous gazes flitted from one corpse to the next, their voices rising in fear and anger and grief. One pointed to Direfang and sputtered something that couldn’t be heard over the ruckus. Others pointed angrily at each other.

“I suspect the dragon will seek vengeance,” Orvago said quietly, so only Direfang, Draath, and Grallik could hear. “I’ve no experience with such creatures, never having seen one before today. But I’ve heard tales from some of the healers on the island, and-”

“Dragon!” Qel’s thin voice cut above the chatter. “The dragon is-”

Though there wasn’t a cloud in sight, a bolt of lightning had appeared, shooting down on the north edge of the city. It was followed by another and another lightning bolt, and for a brief moment, Direfang wished it was Mudwort returning.

But he knew better. More goblins had picked up the cry of “dragon!” as Direfang stared up at the sky. Through a gap in the foliage of the tallest maples and oaks, amid the lightning bolts, he saw the dragon’s serpentine neck and its tail.

“How is this possible?” a despairing Direfang shouted at the magic-users as he waved goblins away from the corpses and toward the bluff. “Lightning from a dragon?”

“I said it looked to be an old dragon,” Grallik said, tucking his hair behind his ears, his chest heaving. He was preparing himself for another spell. “Like me, it has magic. Though I suspect it is the greater wizard.” He began gesturing.

“Down to the river!” Direfang shouted to Rustymane and Gnasher. “Take the clans to the river. Hide in the water.” He thought the water might protect them from the caustic chlorine of the dragon’s breath … though how would they escape the lightning?

Streaks of fire flew from Grallik’s fingertips, shooting through bare spots in the canopy and striking the dragon’s side. Orvago was busy gesturing too, summoning his own enchantments.

The trees nearest the dragon groaned, and the bark split in places. They grew wider and taller in the passing of a handful of heartbeats, their limbs stretching up and up, grabbing at the dragon’s legs. The beast thrashed wildly as Orvago renewed and repeated his spell, more tree limbs whipping around the dragon and holding it like a spiderweb catches unwary insects.

Panicked goblins darted in all directions, ignoring Direfang and the other hobgoblins, some of them scurrying directly underneath the dragon, where a great exhalation of breath caught the slowest. Well more than a thousand had massed on the bluff and started over the side toward the river, their fear of water overcome by their greater fear of the dragon.

And yet, Direfang noticed, they were not as wild and disorganized in their flight as before. The group was sticking together.

“The dragon suppresses its fear,” Grallik observed as he paused to take a deep breath. “It doesn’t want them to flee this time. Of course, it can’t help that they are wisely and naturally afraid of such a monster.” He turned and headed closer to the dragon, pastel light shards shooting from his fingers, a spell the hobgoblin had not known him to cast before. If the pastel shards achieved anything, he couldn’t tell, the bursts of light were lost in the foliage and another cloud of chlorine.

Goblins swarmed around Direfang, waving weapons high and looking for inspiration from their leader.

“Fight the dragon!” The order was barked by Keth, his wide face etched with grief and fury. He leaned on a branch, his broken leg useless. “For Cari, kill the dragon!”

“No use running,” Nkunda agreed. “Can’t run as fast as the dragon can fly. Kill for Cari!” He wielded a long-handled axe that he’d been using for chopping down trees.

“All die this day,” said Sallor grimly. The Skinweaver nervously rubbed at the nose of an elf head dangling from his belt. “But maybe hurt the dragon before death comes.”

“Yes, hurt the dragon,” Direfang said, raising his dry, choked voice for all to hear. “Stall it at least so the others can be safe.” He motioned for them to spread out along the bluff, covering their comrades who continued to climb down the slope toward the river. They swung into action, eager to fight.

Where is Mudwort? Direfang thought fleetingly. She could help, could do something, he thought. A small part of him was glad she was missing. At least she wouldn’t die that day.

His attention was drawn back to the dragon temporarily ensnared by tree limbs. Rather than trying to free itself by flying higher, it had tucked its wings into its sides and was expanding its massive bulk to break the branches. Cracking, splintering, groaning wood could be heard, along with the roar of the dragon. It crushed the goblins who had been running beneath it, broke trees, and gashed its own side. But it was free and landed on the ground and charged toward the bluff.

Its head shot forward on its long neck as its feet propelled it across the loam, uprooting small trees, smashing goblin homes, and knocking over a tall ash that stood in its path. It breathed poisonously as it moved, the yellow-green cloud glimmering wetly, settling on goblins and burned-out homes and making all the world smell like caustic chlorine.

Direfang closed his eyes for just a moment, centering himself and calling up the image of the doe at the pond, wide eyed and beautiful. The vision calmed him a little, just enough. He reached for his axe and long knife, opened his eyes, and raced to meet the dragon’s charge … certain of meeting his death.

Goblins raced behind him, whooping and shouting, all the noise a bluff to disguise their fear, he knew. Qel managed to pull one wounded goblin out of the way as the horde bolted past. Orvago headed over in her direction, conjuring rain as he moved and directing it to follow over the dragon’s head to mute the effect of the chlorine wisps that streamed from its nostrils.

Grallik hurled more colorful shards against the dragon, the magical bursts of light somehow penetrating its thick scales but seemingly doing little more than irritating the monster. The half-elf wizard gave up on that notion and instead sent another strike of fire crashing down on its head. The wizard ran closer still and began calling forth more enchantments.

Direfang wasn’t the first to reach the dragon. A group of Boarhunters had been faster, plunging in when the great beast reared up on its hind legs and breaking their spear points against its armored belly. The dragon roared and fell forward, burying them with its body. Then its legs churned forward again, and Direfang was at its side, hacking away with his axe and knife, both weapons doing nothing against the scales.

“Be fast! Be deadly!” a goblin yelled.

Hundreds swarmed the beast, like ants to a giant, Direfang thought. Some of the goblins came up only to its claws. The ground slick with blood, the hobgoblin nearly tripped when he tried to advance toward the dragon’s front leg. Goblin limbs sticking out from beneath its belly caught on his feet.

Another whoosh of flame and Direfang risked a glance over his shoulder to note Grallik leaning against the lone standing wall of a crushed hobgoblin home. The wizard looked spent but was working at another spell; he was edging closer still. The wizard’s gaze caught Direfang’s, and Grallik shouted something to him, but the hobgoblin couldn’t hear.

One thing he could hear was the pounding of the dragon’s heart, loud as a war drum. Then he heard the crackle of flames. His long knife and axe head burned like so much kindling, and he almost dropped them, thinking the dragon had breathed fire on them.

“Grallik,” he said, realizing the wizard had done something magical to his weapons. He started hacking away hard and fast, the fire singeing his shoulders each time he drew the weapons back to deliver more power. “Cracked!” Direfang called. He’d managed to crack one of the scales. “Be fast. Be deadly!”

“Be fast! Be deadly!” echoed Gnasher.

“Kill the beast for Cari!” Keth cried. “Kill it fast!”

“Kill for Cari!” dozens repeated.

More goblins swarmed in, buoyed by Direfang’s drawing blood. The Fishgatherers rushed at it, throwing nets at its snout and being rewarded with a spray of chlorine. But one of the nets tangled in its teeth, which bought Flamegrass clansmen a moment to dart in beneath its jaw and stab upward with their spears.

The dragon tossed its head this way and that, swatting goblins against trees and each other, slamming its head down and smashing the Flamegrass clansmen who had tarried too long. It opened its mouth wide, snapping the net, then propelled itself forward and scooped up more than a dozen goblins in one bite, swallowing them whole before moving toward the next cluster.

“Be fast! Be deadly!” the goblins continued to chant.

Only a few fled. Direfang was amazed by their bravery. But perhaps, he thought, they, like him, realized flight would only prolong their final confrontation with the dragon, prolong their deaths.

The fire magic started to ebb on his weapons, but Direfang kept stabbing and slashing, bolstered when the flames surged again. More weapons caught fire in the hands of goblins near him.

“It’s Grallik’s doing!” Direfang shouted. “Don’t drop the knives. They’re hot but deadly!”

“Be fast! Be deadly!” echoed all around him.

The goblins swung faster and harder, with every measure of their strength, whooping when they cracked scales and drew blood.

“It’s going to fly!” a yellow-skinned goblin shouted. He was perched on the dragon’s side, holding tight to the edge of a scale as he jabbed a spear in a gap between two other scales.

Direfang saw the beast’s muscles bunch and its wings stretch. In that instant he also saw branches snake down and tangle themselves in the ridge that ran along the dragon’s back. More branches whipped around its tail. Some branches looked like lances, the leaves gone and ends sharp. They jabbed at the dragon’s side, one penetrating deep into a wound someone had already inflicted.

“It’s not going anywhere, Foreman Direfang!” the gnoll, nearby the hobgoblin leader, shouted. “Not if I can do anything about it.”

The dragon’s roar changed tone, and Direfang ascribed pain to the sound. He redoubled his efforts, hacking into it with his axe and pulling himself up, driving the knife in and pulling himself higher as though climbing a mountain. Other goblins tried to do the same, but only those with flaming knives had success against the thick hide. Some climbed on the shoulders of their clansmen for higher perches. Boarhunters climbed trees and dropped onto the dragon’s back.

Grallik concentrated his spells on enhancing the goblins’ weapons. “Hot knives into butter!” he shouted.

Direfang didn’t understand the reference. But the hobgoblin left his knife embedded in the beast’s side and used the handle as a foothold, reaching up with his free hand to grab at a wing. The dragon continued to cast its head around and tried to lumber forward. Its snout struck Direfang and stole his breath.

He dropped his flaming axe and held on to a ridge of the wing with both hands. Glancing down, he saw Keth snatch up the magicked axe and start hacking away furiously, still leaning precariously on a branch to keep himself from toppling.

“For Cari!” the Boarhunter screamed, bloody spittle flying from his lips.

Direfang scrambled onto the dragon’s back, grabbing one of its spines so he wouldn’t fall off. From his higher vantage point, the scales looked like pieces of tile like some of the roofs in Steel Town once sported. He had no idea what he would do up there, weaponless, so he barked orders down to the goblins swarming in closer and to those joining him on its back.

“Between its scales,” he hollered, using his bare hands to pound on the dragon’s back. “Soft spots there.” He ducked when an animated tree branch dipped down and drove its spiked end into a gap. Another followed but splintered against a thick scale, shards of wood flying, some piercing Direfang’s arms.

The hobgoblin howled, more in surprise than pain. One hand holding tight to a spine, he wrapped his fingers around a branch and shoved it in deeper. Goblins were tossed off the dragon’s back as it writhed, but Direfang and several others managed to hold on.

“Be fast! Be deadly!” Direfang recognized Gnasher’s gravelly voice. “For fallen friends!”

“For living friends!” a goblin added. “So friends can keep living.”

Direfang looked over the side and spotted more blades catching fire and more branches reaching out to tangle the dragon’s hindquarters. He couldn’t see the ground anymore; the goblins were too thick. Thousands had joined the battle.

Could they overwhelm the dragon by their sheer numbers? Direfang wondered, feeling a faint hope. Did they truly have a chance?

“Maybe not die this day,” he said.

Two goblins were farther back, near the edge of the bluff-Thya and Graytoes. Heads down in concentration, a ripple of earth rushed away from them and toward the dragon. Goblins jumped out of the way as the wave of earth raced toward the beast.

“The dragon’s feet are buried!” Sully reported. “The dragon is stuck.”

The air was filled with so much noise, it was deafening: the dragon roaring, almost screaming, goblins whooping and cheering, flames crackling, and more fire whooshing down in an orange column so bright that Direfang had to shut his eyes. He felt intense heat, and the slickness of blood pumping around his feet where the dragon had been pierced by another wood lance.

The dragon did not thrash so wildly anymore. More branches held it down, more stabbed into it, and goblins had increasing success opening wounds wider. Its roar weakened as another ripple of earth raced toward it, filling its mouth with dirt and spraying up over its shoulders and turning to mud amid the gushing blood.

“Be deadly!” Gnasher had climbed up on the dragon’s back near Direfang and was grinning wide at the hobgoblin leader. “Win!”

“Win,” Direfang said softly. The hobgoblin was exhausted. Through a sickly yellow-green cloud, he spied Grallik holding on to a thin birch trunk, knees buckled and mouth still feverishly working a spell. Draath was several yards beyond the wizard, hands in the earth, sending another wave of dirt toward the dragon. Its side heaved heavily then stilled.

A moment later everyone cheered.

“Bury the dragon!” Gnasher cried. “Bury it.”

Direfang shook his head wearily, barely able to speak. “Eat it, Gnasher. It will feed … all the clans.” The hobgoblin let go his grip on the spine and slid down its bloody side.

Hundreds had died, their bodies littering the ground, and crows drifted down to feast. Goblins shooed the birds away as they pulled the corpses into piles. But the crows were determined and kept coming back.

Other goblins had already set to work on cutting up the dragon and fighting off more birds. They started stripping its hide, preserving the best sections of scales and setting them aside while digging into the meat beneath.

“Save the bones!” That came from one of the Boarhunters. “They will be good posts and weapons. Posts to build, weapons to fight!”

“Save everything!” Sully hollered.

The air was thick with blood and chlorine, and Orvago conjured small bursts of rain, which did little to make it easier to breathe.

“This city,” Graytoes said, coming up to Direfang. She held Umay, and though both were splattered with mud and blood, both were safe. “This isn’t a city anymore, Direfang.”

He followed her gaze. What buildings hadn’t been burned by the fire had been knocked over or crushed by the dragon. Only a few stood-or rather sections of a few. Trees had fallen too, and thick branches had broken off the massive oaks. Clumps of birch trees leaned precariously, their roots half out of the ground.

It looked like a disaster, a catastrophe, an apocalypse.

“There is nothing left to rebuild, Direfang,” Graytoes said. “There is nothing left here.”

MUDWORT’S ORDEAL

It had been long weeks since Mudwort had experienced such pain. She’d often been whipped in the Steel Town mines; she didn’t know a slave there who hadn’t been beaten by the Dark Knight taskmasters. She’d been injured by falling rocks, by clumsy hobgoblins stepping on her, by goblins dropping chunks of ore on her bare feet, and through her own carelessness in the tunnels. She’d been hurt so badly a few times that one of the Dark Knight healers had to tend to her.

But her pain was worse.

For an instant she hadn’t been able to feel the fingers the hated Dark Knight had snapped. However, they were all she could feel at that moment.

The pain came in bursts, shooting up through her hand and into her arm, fiery jolts that caused her to slam her teeth together. Tears spilled from the corners of her eyes. It was all she could do to keep from crying out.

Show no weakness in front of these foul, foul men!

But she was weak. She couldn’t stop the tears.

The Dark Knight reached for a third finger as another knight grabbed her leg and twisted it.

“S-s-stop,” she said in their language. The word was a plea. It was one of the first words she’d learned of the common tongue.

The Dark Knight dropped her on the ground. “Then talk to us, rat. Talk quick if you don’t want more bones broken.”

“Maybe we should wait, Tanner. Take her to the commander and see if Zocci can get something out of her. Don’t want to bring her in too mangled. You know what happened to the last one we caught. And we’re days and days away from the main unit.”

Two knights stood over her, the only two she’d heard names for: Tanner and Donnel, both words, both humans hated more than anything in the world. The latter had skin the color of milk. There were four other knights in the clearing, all on their feet and chattering to one another about how pleased their commander would be with the goblin, though one of them was shaking his head and saying: “One goblin is nothing. Less than nothing.” He argued that they should go hunting for more.

“You’re from Steel Town, rat.” Tanner spoke slowly, and Mudwort guessed it was so she might better understand him.

She nodded without hesitation. “Yes, Steel Town. Hell Town.” The latter was what she’d heard some of the knights call the mining camp.

“See the whip scars?” He bent and ripped the tunic off her shoulder. “See? I told you she’s from the mines.” Tanner broke into a broad grin, and Donnel slapped him on the back.

Mudwort cradled her injured hand. The broken fingers still throbbed, but the ache had eased just enough so she could also register the pain in her twisted leg. Had they broken her leg too? She tried to sit up and move her leg, but Donnel stepped hard on her good ankle to hold her in place. She writhed in the dirt and cursed at them in goblinspeak.

“Take care,” one of the other four knights said. “Don’t kill it. We’ll have to bury it like the last one.”

Tanner leaned close. “Little rat, you are indeed from Steel Town, yes?”

“Yes. Already said so. Yes. Steel Town. Hell Town.” The words hissed out between clenched teeth. She dug the fingers of her good hand into the ground when Donnel placed more pressure on her ankle. All the competing pains in her little body threatened to drive her to unconsciousness. “Steel Town, yes. Yes. Yes.”

There’d been birds singing when they’d carried her to their small camp. Odd, she thought, that she’d noticed and remembered that. But the birds had stopped, and all she could hear were the men breathing, the ones she couldn’t see clearly whispering, and the quick thunder of her heart.

“Iverton,” one of them said. “They used to call the place Iverton.”

“They don’t call it anything now,” said another of the four. “It’s buried under ash and rock, like soon we’ll have to bury her if they’re not more careful.”

“So the others are nearby?” Tanner asked, raising his voice. “The Steel Town goblins?”

She opened her mouth and raised an eyebrow, trying to decide what to say.

“The other escaped slaves,” Donnel clarified. He raised his voice too. “You didn’t come all this way by yourself, little thing. There were shiploads of you stinking rats.”

“Nearby,” Mudwort admitted when he reached for her again. She nodded. “Yes. Walked from nearby. Not far. Not terrible far.” Her breath came in ragged gasps when Donnel pressed harder on her ankle before finally stepping back. Her mouth was filled with dust and blood. She’d bitten her tongue hard. “On a bluff. They are all perched on a bluff. There is a river, and-”

“And the traitor wizard?” That came from one of the other knights. She couldn’t see him well, as he stood behind Tanner. His voice was scratchy and unpleasant. “Is the traitor wizard nearby? Guardian N’sera they used to call him.”

“Grallik,” Mudwort supplied, drawing smiles from Donnel and Tanner. “Grallik is there, perched on the bluff with the others.”

Two of the knights in the background talked rapidly, one claiming to have known Grallik from before Steel Town. That was the one with the scratchy voice, and Mudwort realized he had some age to him.

“Never cared for the wizard,” he was saying so softly that she had to strain to hear him. “Only interested in magic. Kept to himself. I never trust magic. Not even Isaam’s dark arts.”

Mudwort wondered who Isaam was, and if the scratchy-voiced knight was with the search party because he’d recognize the wizard.

“Grallik from Steel Town,” she said with a little more volume. “Grallik is nearby, yes.” She held her injured hand to her chest and drew her sore leg in closer. She could wiggle her toes, a good sign … until they decided to break them like her fingers. She kept her good hand in the ground where they couldn’t reach it.

“And you can lead us to them all, can’t you, little rat.” Tanner did not speak it as a question. “You can lead us to Grallik and the escaped slaves.”

Mudwort vehemently shook her head, blood drops flying from her lips. Even though she could move her toes, her leg was twisted so badly that she wasn’t sure she could lead anyone anywhere. But more than that, she wouldn’t lead them to Direfang. “No,” she spit. “Never.”

“You know where they are!” Donnel shot back. “You’ll take us to them or we’ll kill you.”

“She knows we’ll kill her anyway,” Tanner said in a low voice. “They’re not completely stupid.”

“Oh, this little rat will lead us straight to them. I promise you that. Lead us to them, and then we’ll bring Commander Kata here. There’ll be promotions and decorations for all of us.” Donnel made another move toward Mudwort and stumbled, crying out.

In the next moment, all of the knights were shouting and struggling, arms flailing like animals caught in a trap. Mudwort had trapped them with her magic, rode the earth up over their feet and hardened it. She pulled her good hand free of the earth and scrambled forward between Tanner and Donnel, dragging her injured leg and narrowly avoiding a sword blow from one of the other stuck knights.

She crawled faster and got farther away then spun back and sat and glared at them, waggling her fingers and coaxing the ground to continue to do her bidding.

All six were caught up to their ankles in the earth that she had pulled them down into and magically strengthened.

“What sorcery is this?” shouted Tanner. He was struggling the most, and in response the ground started cracking around him. “Is the goblin responsible? Did that rat do this?”

“Aye, foul thing that it is,” Donnel spit. He was wriggling out of his boots. “We were told there might be spell-weavers among them.” He grunted and twisted, working his right foot halfway out.

“Never escape,” she told them in goblinspeak. “Stuck forever in the ground. Be buried in the ground, reeking Dark Knight corpses.” Ignoring her pain, she thrust her good hand into the earth again, the dirt softening like clay around her fingers. “Buried. Buried. Buried.” The earth softened around the knights and began to soothingly suck them down.

The Dark Knights stared wide-eyed as her arm sank in up to the elbow and she pointed the thumb of her mangled hand at them. “Ever and ever and ever stuck! Buried! Buried! Buried!”

Ripples spread out from her embedded arm, like mud sliding down the side of a hill in a summer storm. It rushed forward and, like a wave, rode up past their knees. At the same time, the ground turned to liquid below them, tugging them down like quicksand.

“Ever and ever,” Mudwort repeated. She turned the words into a chant.

They screamed obscenities, their voices filled with anger and terror, so loud that she thought the rest of the knights-there had to be more of them somewhere-or Direfang even … someone would have heard their death cries.

How many more knights?

And how far had those carried her from where she’d been captured? How far away were Direfang and the others?

As they struggled like bugs trapped in a spiderweb, she slammed her eyes shut and pushed her senses through the mud and toward the knights several feet away. In the back of her mind, she could see their legs churning uselessly through the muck.

Ever and forever, she mouthed.

She picked two pairs of legs that were churning the most violently and created a vortex that sucked them down faster. Within the passing of a few heartbeats, two chests were surrounded by mud, then two faces, their arms above their heads waggling almost comically. Mudwort could see through the earth like others could see through the air on a clear day. She saw the utter panic etched into their faces, mouths gulping in her liquefied earth, eyes wide and seeing nothing but blackness.

She watched them drown.

When they stopped moving, she opened her eyes and stared at the four remaining, the horror written plain on their faces bringing a smile to her own. She’d trapped the two unnamed ones up to their armpits already, the one with the scratchy voice ineffectually beating the stonelike earth with his sword.

Donnel and Tanner she’d left free from their hips up.

“Quiet,” she commanded. “Quiet or be tugged under like the buried two.”

They instantly obeyed, though Tanner opened his mouth as if to say something.

“Quiet!”

Mudwort waited until she heard birds singing again. Her broken fingers still throbbed, and her twisted leg hurt too. She felt some pain in her stomach, where she’d been punched. She wanted to prod herself with her good hand, to see how serious her injuries were. She wouldn’t die from her wounds, she suspected, but she worried that she might not make it back to Direfang’s city on her own.

“The knights …” she began. “All the other knights. Where are they? The knights with the one called Isaam and the commander?”

The four stared at her, Donnel red-faced and eyes aiming daggers at her.

“Don’t tell that rat anything.” That came from one of the unnamed knights. He’d said it to Tanner, so she guessed that Tanner was in charge of the group. “Don’t tell that thing-”

His words ended in a gurgling sound, his mouth full of mud, choking.

Mudwort liquefied another clump of dirt. The size of an apple, it rolled away from her and slowly toward the knights. It rolled between Donnel and Tanner, the latter trying to grab at it. Mudwort kept it just beyond the reach of his questing fingers. Then the clump of dirt turned into a snake and oozed up the leg of the knight who’d just swallowed the first ball of mud.

“The knights,” Mudwort said again. “Where are they?”

When there was still no answer, the mud snake oozed up the man’s chest then his neck. He struggled so hard, she feared he would either break free or snap his back from all his gyrations.

“Tanner!” he sputtered. “Tanner, do something. By all the dark gods-”

She directed the mud snake into his mouth, filling it, a tendril of it reaching up and plugging his nose. The knight’s gyrations increased, his face turning scarlet, his eyes expanding so wide that she wondered if they might pop out onto his cheeks. He managed a whimpering noise right before he died; then he crumpled over as much as his earthen prison allowed.

“Cramer’s dead!” Donnel shouted, twisting around to stare at his fallen comrade. “The rat’ll kill us all. Foul sorcery!”

Mudwort bared her teeth, eyes boring into Tanner’s, which had lost some of their intensity.

“The knights,” she said. “I’ll ask again. Where are all the knights?”

“I don’t know where they are.” Tanner’s voice was edged with defiance, though it lacked the scorn she’d noted before. “And that’s the truth. We left them on the beach when were told to scout inland. We’ve been gone from them for days and days.”

Mudwort drew her face together until she knew it must look pinched and angry. Why send a scouting party into a forest to lose itself? How were they expected to find their main group again?

Unless the main group was tracking the scouts. Clever. Yes, Dark Knights could be clever and resourceful.

A shiver passed down her spine. Would more knights be there soon?

“How many knights?” she asked angrily.

“Three of us left,” he shot back. “You killed the other three.”

“Knights on the beach.” Mud rippled out from her embedded arm again, surging toward Tanner and stopping just in front of him. Donnel had turned back around and was gesturing futilely at the sloshing wave. “How many knights on the beach?”

Tanner shook his head. “No, never.”

“It’ll kill us, Tanner. Don’t tell that damnable rat anything.”

“Donnel.” Mudwort shifted her gaze to him. Another wave of mud washed away from her and toward him.

“Damnable rat!” Donnel cursed. “You’ll learn nothing from us. We’ll see you in the Abyss!”

She stopped the wave just short of him, the mud moving forward and back like water lapping at the shore. Maybe if she shut Donnel up, then Tanner would talk. Or maybe … with a twitch of her thumb, she directed the mud flow between Tanner and Donnel and around to the other knight stuck behind them.

Maybe that lowly Dark Knight knew something and would talk, she thought. She directed the mud to ooze upward until it covered the human’s shoulders and neck. Then it slowly crept up his chin.

“Tanner?” The word came out as a squeak.

“How many knights?” Mudwort practically shouted the question. “How many on the beach?”

He shook his head, droplets of mud flying away from his frantic motions. “Never.”

“How many days and days away?” Mudwort closed her eyes and thought back to Steel Town, savoring her hatred of Dark Knights.

“Submit or die,” she heard the Dark Knights say over and over there. “Obey the will of our superiors and put all personal goals behind the aims of the Order. Submit or die.”

She’d wend her way up the mountain each day for her overlong shift in the mine, and often she would pause before the entrance and stare down into the mining camp to see the Dark Knights standing before their commander. In perfect lines and wearing full armor that glinted in the early-morning sun, they knelt in unison, bowed their heads in unison, and shared a moment of silence. Then their voices would rise up the side of the mountain in a sonorous hum that sounded like a swarm of cicadas. They joined in what they called their Blood Oath, and they repeated it five times, followed by something she learned was called “The Code.” Then she considered it a horrible squandering of words, an insipid chant that wasted time and saliva. At that moment it was something useful to remember and say to the doomed one.

“Submit or die,” she said to the knight covered in mud.

He glared at her.

“Then die.” Mudwort gestured with her mangled hand, the mud doing her bidding and covering the knight as if he were a piece of fruit being dipped in chocolate, dipped and covered.

He struggled for only a moment; then she forced the mud to harden like stone. Donnel twisted around to see his companion struggle briefly and die. After a moment he turned back to Tanner, looking for guidance. Tanner was trying in vain to wrest free.

“Submit or die,” she repeated to Donnel.

“Never,” he said again.

She looked to Tanner; his head was pointed at the ground as he bucked and thrashed about, trying to pull himself out of his earthen prison. He didn’t see her snarl at him or hear her curse in a language he couldn’t fathom. And he didn’t see her close her eyes.

She peered into the earth again. The spell she wove sent her mind through the ground as if she were a burrowing animal. She felt the earth resting lightly on her, though she knew she was aboveground. It was a comforting feeling. She smelled the richness of it and the sickly sweet scent of the dead insects and tiny animals that had died and been covered over by time. She headed toward the knights again, feeling small, smooth rocks and finding the sensation of passing over them pleasant. It made the pain in her fingers and leg ease just a bit. A moment more and she felt Tanner’s boots, once so polished and fine, marred and soiled. Higher and she felt his metal leg plates.

His armor was insignificant compared to her magic. She made a fist and watched as the metal caved and twisted, the earth pressing in so very hard and relentless. She heard the ground rumble, and faintly, she heard Tanner cry out in anguish.

Submit or die, she mouthed.

The ground pressed in harder, the metal crumpling like a piece of parchment. She heard the groan of the buckling leg plates, and she heard Tanner’s bones snap.

He screamed then, his knightly mien dissolving as the pain consumed him, as the pain had consumed Mudwort when they broke her fingers.

She wasn’t done with him, letting the ground open up beneath him so he could drop down. His chest passed below the surface then his head. The mud on the surface flowed over where he’d been and hardened at her bidding. The earth pressed in once more, crunching his breastplate and arm plates and breaking the bones beneath. He died too quickly for her. Mudwort had never considered herself a cruel sort, but she hated Dark Knights above all else.

“Five hundred and forty.”

The words pulled her mind back into her body. She blinked and beheld Donnel, sweat running down his horrified face.

“I said, there are five hundred and forty knights, under the command of Bera Kata.”

She hadn’t expected any of the Dark Knights to break and had fully intended to suck that one down and be on her way.

“On the beach?”

He shook his head, sweat beads flying. “They were on the beach when we left them, but they were coming inland. They would find us later, or we would find them. There’s a sorcerer with them. He can find most things.”

“Isaam.” Mudwort recalled the name one of them had mentioned in connection with dark magic.

“That’s him. He would use his magic to find us so we could join the main force.”

“Hunting goblins, all these knights?”

He nodded.

“Five hundred and forty.”

He gave another nod. “Maybe more coming from an outpost. Commander Kata asked for them, but I don’t know if the orders came through.”

“Why?” Mudwort couldn’t understand why the Dark Knights would expend so much effort to track down the escaped Steel Town slaves. There was no more Steel Town. It was buried under tons of rock and hardened lava. And if they needed slaves for some other endeavor, why didn’t they just buy more from the ogres and minotaurs in the mountains? Why spend so much time and effort, and certainly steel, to track down Direfang and the others. Wouldn’t it be more prudent to buy fresh slaves and save time and steel?

“Why?” she posed louder. “Why hunt goblins? These goblins?”

He shrugged, his lower lip trembling fearfully. All bluster, he’d been, she thought. Maybe he realized the Blood Oath he’d sworn was a waste of time and saliva after all.

“Submit or die.”

The redness vanished from his face and he looked oddly pale, his face all shiny.

“To make an example, I think.” He sucked in his lip and squared his shoulders. “I think the Order needed to make an example of all of you. Can’t let slaves escape. Others might try it. And Guardian N’sera … traitors must be punished.”

She nodded. That would make a certain amount of sense. She silently regarded him. Her silence made him even more frightened. She was listening to the birds sing, spotting a pretty blue one with an orange belly and a white tuft on its neck.

“Can’t let slaves escape. Can’t let them be uncaptured and unpunished. Sets a bad precedent.” He spoke barely above a whisper. “For our honor. For the honor of the Order.”

“Honor?” She looked to where his companions had been. “The spirits will live in rotting bodies. No honor in that. S’dards, Dark Knights are. Spirits forever caught in rotting flesh.”

After the earthquakes in Steel Town, Mudwort had watched the knights bury their dead fellows. The graves were not far from the slave pens. In their armor and with weapons on their chests, they were stretched out in the ground, wrapped in a fine blanket, and covered with dirt. The knights capped their ceremony with words of praise and with a promise of a life beyond their world. Mudwort and the other goblins knew the living knights were committing their fallen brethren to a hellish eternity.

The goblins believed spirits returned to the bodies they’d inhabited, but if those bodies were burned, scattered, or otherwise destroyed, the spirits were forced to find a new life in a goblin being born. The knights’ spirits would return to dead husks, forever trapped in rotting flesh, going mad and nowhere.

“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?” He paused. More softly, he said, “Not that I can blame you, how we treated you here. How we treated all of your kind in Steel Town and elsewhere.”

“Five hundred? And forty?” Mudwort was trying to wrap her mind around the number. She knew it was a lot, but she didn’t wholly understand numbers. She knew there were many, many goblins. One thousand, two … more than five hundred and forty knights. But how many more? Did Direfang need to know that?

“Five hundred and forty knights. Commander Kata wanted more. Maybe she’ll get them.”

“From an outpost?”

“Yes.”

“All looking for goblins.” She pursed her lips. “Direfang must know.”

She drummed her fingers against the ground, thinking. How far was she from the bluff? One day? More? Grallik is partly to blame for the Dark Knights following, she thought. Damn half-elf wizard.

“They’ll find me … or my body,” Donnel said fearfully. “You have to realize that. Isaam will find me, and they’ll come here. And then they’ll find you. They’ll kill all of you.”

Mudwort’s expression grew darker and he shuddered.

“Never find the goblins, the hated Dark Knights,” she said after a moment. “Because this Isaam will not find-”

“No. Please. I told you what you wanted to know. By all the dark gods, I …” His voice trailed away as he sank beneath the surface, the ground filling in over him. Mudwort smoothed the dirt with her magic.

The Dark Knight commander-Mudwort could not remember the name of the officer-and the magic-user called Isaam wouldn’t find the knights because they would all be dead and buried-more than buried. She continued to work her magic, sending the ones already buried under deeper and sending the broken one caught on top below and the one coated in rock with him.

“Down,” she ordered the ground. Within minutes they were hidden deep in the earth’s bosom, where their spirits would return and be trapped and driven mad forever and ever.

She pulled her arm from the earth and brushed it off. Her fingers pulled on a clump of clay that caught on her hair, closing and opening the fingers of her good hand. She held her injured hand close to her chest as she tried to stand, her first two efforts failing miserably. Finally she regained her footing, putting all her weight on her good leg, and hobbling toward the base of a tree where the knights had left their packs.

She gingerly sat and pulled the first one to her, fumbling with the clasp and sticking her good hand inside. She pulled out a dark linen shirt, like she’d seen some of the knights wear under their armor. That she set aside. She’d need something new because one of the knights had torn her tunic. Further exploring produced a cake of scented soap, which she discarded; a metal comb, which she had no use for; strips of cloth, one of which she wrapped around her mangled hand; and a small tin of hard candies, which she quickly devoured. The tin she filled with fresh earth, wanting the tin as a keepsake to remember the spot where she killed six Dark Knights all by herself.

There was more food in the other pack, too much for her to eat all at once, and nothing smelling as sweet as the candies. Mudwort wished she would have saved a few pieces of the candy for later. She rarely thought of later where food was concerned. There was a jar of salve, which she rubbed on her sore leg, finding it did nothing to ease the ache. But it smelled pleasant, and she held her nose to the jar. “Flowers. Smells like little purple flowers,” she muttered, enjoying the sound of her own voice.

There was a small, sharp knife and a sheath, which she kept, and a silver chain and a locket, which had a tiny painting of a pretty girl inside. Perhaps the knight’s sister or wife. Mudwort dug the painting out with her fingernail and discarded it, putting the chain and empty locket around her neck.

She spent the next several minutes using the knife to cut the sleeves off the shirt and to shorten it. Then she cut a strap off one of the packs and fashioned it into a belt so her new black tunic would not hang so loosely. Finished, she hung the knife from the belt and stood, leaning against the tree to keep the weight off her sore leg. All the while the birds sang; Mudwort took that as a sign they approved of her killing the knights.

Finally, she selected the pack in the best condition, a dark leather one that its owner had oiled and rubbed. She put the food she hadn’t eaten in it along with another tunic she’d found; an ivory-handled razor; and a small, leather-bound book with scribbling in it. Half the book was blank. Direfang might like it, Mudwort thought. Maybe he could read the first part of it to her. She tucked the tin with dirt inside.

She slung it over her good shoulder and with great effort stood and staggered away from the tree. Another quick spell and the earth flowed over the other packs, burying them. More magic buried the tent pitched behind a pair of elms. She kept one of the tent stakes, breaking it in two and using it as a cane to help her limp around. It took her well more than an hour to circle outward from the camp and coax the dirt into shifting to cover all traces of the knights’ footsteps and presence.

Exhausted and uncomfortable from her injuries, she found a rotting limb that worked better as a walking stick and hobbled from the clearing in the direction she was certain Direfang’s city sprawled. The broken tent post was eaten by the earth.

She hadn’t been able to look in on Direfang’s city before her capture, and she wondered if she should try again. She could contact Thya or one of the other goblins with a spark of magic inside … maybe even Grallik. Someone could come to her and help her, bring a hobgoblin to carry her. Or she could get Grallik to carry her in exchange for the promise of teaching him more magic.

“Direfang should know about the knights,” she said. It would take her a long time to reach the bluff over the river, going as slow as she had to hobble. Thinking about it, she decided if she summoned help, she would have to explain what she’d been doing there. They would ask and learn about the spear. No one must know of the spear, she decided. Mudwort’s spear.

Moving slowly and painfully was all right, she decided, and it was better to go it alone, asking the earth to cover up her tracks as she went and occasionally looking over her shoulder to make sure it was complying. The walk would give her time to think about how to explain her unfortunate adventure to Direfang and how to reveal the news about the five hundred and forty knights. The walk would give her time to dream up a credible story.

It was dark and two hard, painful days later by the time she reached the infant city.

A ruined city.

Mudwort stared and poked through the shadows. Homes were knocked over and destroyed. Trees were stripped of leaves and fingerling branches, and the ground had a diseased look to it, as if it were skin ravaged with boils by some plague. There was an odd, acrid stench that hung heavily in the air, and there was an all-too-familiar scent, goblin corpses that had been burned on a fire. There was also the odor of cooked meat, a strange meat, unfamiliar, but welcome. She wondered if there was anything left that she might nibble on.

Goblins were working in the shadows, though Mudwort could not tell what they were doing and had no desire to look closer, their usual conversations mingling with the sounds of crickets and small, green tree frogs and other muted night noises.

She stayed on the outskirts for several minutes, catching her breath and steadying herself, wondering what had befallen the city. What disaster had arrived? Would she have been able to help if she’d been there? Would her magic have made a difference?

She shook her head. “Maybe would have died,” she told herself. “Maybe would be a burned husk now.” She sniffed the air again. “A lot of dead goblins.”

She dropped the walking stick and lurched toward the home she knew was being built for the gnoll and the human healer. It was one of the few places that seemed to have survived the disaster.

Several goblins chattered hello and questions to her as she passed. She dismissed all their questions and concerns and waved them away with a gesture and a snarl.

The gnoll was not at Qel’s home site, which pleased her. She thought him more intense than the healer, and more curious. He might ask her too many questions about where she had been, and he was fluent in goblinspeak, so she couldn’t pretend she didn’t understand him.

“Qel?”

The human had been sitting with her back to a small fire, and when she turned, Mudwort thought she saw traces of tears on her cheeks.

“Mudwort, you’re back! And you’re hurt!”

Mudwort nodded and shuffled toward her.

“What did you do? Where have you been? Did the dragon hurt you?”

Dragon?

“Mudwort?” Direfang had materialized. She hadn’t noticed him nearby, but then she’d been intent on finding the healer. “Mudwort limps. What happened?”

“What happened here?” the goblin returned.

Direfang explained then pointed to her twisted leg and her mangled fingers.

“Fell in the woods,” Mudwort answered almost too quickly. “Stupid, clumsy, tripped. Fell in the woods.” She’d intended to warn him about the Dark Knights. He’d understand better the notion of five hundred and forty of the enemy pursuing them. But on her way to the city, she began to worry he’d move them all again, farther from her spear, or that he’d prevent any of them from leaving the city for fear of them being captured by Dark Knights.

She couldn’t let either of those things happen.

“All alone, walking and paying no attention while a dragon came here. Fell in the woods, tumbled down rocks and stuff, and got hurt bad, Direfang. Qel can help, though.”

The healer stretched forward her unnaturally cold hands.

PREPARING FOR WAR

Lurreg, a muscular goblin of middle years with mudbrown skin and olive-colored eyes, was leader of the Fernwold clan. He’d made it clear that he and his fellows did not like the Skinweavers, wrinkling their noses at the shrunken elf heads and refusing to return any friendly gestures.

Yet Lurreg toiled by Draath’s side, expending more effort and energy than he had when building his ruined home.

The two clans had fashioned spears from the thick, straight branches that could be salvaged from roofs. Those who had axes and knives cut logs that had once formed walls to make more spears, the best and thickest pieces becoming clubs. They discarded pieces that were cracked or bent like a supple willow or had been weakened too much by the chlorine.

Draath sat on a scarred piece of ground with a half dozen spear hafts in front of him and a pile of black, fist-sized rocks. Lurreg was nearby and watching the Skinweaver’s hands … refusing to look him in the eyes. Draath patted the smallest of his shrunken heads, a ritual he followed when he worked on each weapon; reached for a stone; and touched it to the end of a haft.

“This is obsidian,” Draath explained. “Dark as its purpose, to slay. Black as death.” His fingers moved over the stone, which shimmered and became as malleable as clay. “Obsidian is the best for this. Crystals work too, but those are more difficult to find.” The stone flowed over the end of the haft, capping it and firmly affixing itself. His thumb ran along the edges, forming it into something that looked like an arrowhead, but the thin edges were larger and appeared sharper, gleaming in the bright morning sunlight.

“Looks like glass,” Lurreg said. “This clan saw glass on the other side of the mountains. It was in a village in the Plains of Dust. An empty village. Obsidian looks like glass that reflects the night sky. Looks brittle. It will break easily.”

Draath grunted in disagreement and ran the spear tip across the palm of his hand, drawing a thick line of blood. “Obsidian is the very best,” he said. “And it is very difficult to break.” He put the finished spear off to the side and happily sucked on his wound. A youngling collected the spear and carried it to a growing pile.

The Boarhunters were making spears too, but theirs did not have stone tips. They affixed pieces of the spine that had run down the dragon’s back, dragon teeth, and talons to hafts. The youngest clan members did not have the luxury of using dragon parts. They sharpened the ends of the wood with knives and rubbed the knobs off the hafts so they would be easier to hold and more balanced to throw.

“Kroan used to work the dirt with magic,” Lurreg explained. “Kroan listened to the dirt and heard Mudwort’s call.” The clan leader bowed his head ruefully. “But Kroan was killed by the dragon. No remaining stonetellers in this clan.”

“That is …” Draath gestured toward a young goblin, little more than two feet tall. He had the same coloration as Lurreg, but his eyes were as black as the piece of obsidian Draath fitted to another spear.

“Olag,” Lurreg said, still not meeting Draath’s eyes.

“There is magic in Olag,” the Skinweaver said. “It can be coaxed out.”

Lurreg brightened and passed another haft to Draath. The Skinweaver crooked his finger at the young goblin, who hesitated a moment before cautiously approaching. Draath grabbed his arm and tugged him to the ground, shoving a piece of obsidian into his small hand. He took another spear haft, cupped his hand around Olag’s, and forced the stone to the top of the wood.

“Find the magic inside, Olag. Tell the stone what it should do.” The Skinweaver poked a finger at his chest. “There is magic in your heart. Find it.” Draath cast his spell on the stone, pulling the energy from Olag. “Together, Olag. Feel it?”

The young goblin nodded enthusiastically, eyes wide as the obsidian began to flow and fasten to the spear.

“Together, sculpt the point,” Draath continued. He pulled more energy from the youth as the edges grew sharp and shiny.

Flamegrass clansmen, taught by a hobgoblin named Gokop, were fashioning breastplates from dragon skin. The largest scales were being made into formidable shields.

“Preparing for war,” Gokop said, grinning wide.

Others looked up and smiled back.

Direfang wished Spikehollow were with him. Spikehollow had been a slave in the Dark Knight mining camp. When the goblins made their escape, Spikehollow had joined Direfang in looting weapons from fallen knights and using those weapons against their remaining foes. The young goblin had been an able fighter, strong and determined, and if he were there, he would be useful. But Spikehollow had died weeks past, an early victim of the plague that wiped out so many of the Steel Town clansmen.

Dozens of goblins were crowded around Direfang. He gripped a long sword in one hand, which had been taken from a Steel Town knight, and held a hand axe in the other. He’d given his best knife to a feisty young goblin named Tilk.

“Watch me.” He crouched and held the sword level to the ground then swung it so fast, it whistled through the air. He followed it with a chopping motion with the axe. The hobgoblin repeated the maneuvers, pointing out each step.

All of the goblins in the group bore weapons, most of them short swords and daggers that had been taken from the corpses of Dark Knights or stolen from the ogre and dwarven towns they’d passed through on their flight from the mining camp. They did their best to imitate Direfang’s motions. The hobgoblin paused to congratulate the goblins who were correctly mastering the moves.

“How long, Direfang?” That came from Jando-Jando, who wielded two knives, one of which was missing its tip, and the other of which had a broken handle. “How long practice?”

“Practice until the weapons are too heavy to hold,” the hobgoblin answered as he showed them how to thrust and parry with a blade. “Practice until the hands that hold them feel as heavy as boulders. And then practice some more and more.”

Direfang had never received training with a sword or any weapon for that matter. He’d been taught how to use a pick in the mines, and some of those principles applied to fighting. But he’d studied the Dark Knights when they were drilling. In the slave pens, there was little to do except eat and listen to the chatter of the clans. So he had focused on the knights, who also inadvertently taught him their language and how to read.

Rustymane was training another group of goblins, all of those wielding knives. Rustymane was nearly as proficient as Direfang, having also been a foreman in the mines and having also wisely studied the Dark Knights. Encountering beasts such as a tylor in Neraka and bloodragers and the dragon in the forest had forced Rustymane and Direfang to become experts with weapons.

Sallor and two other Skinweavers were teaching the youngest group of goblins how to wield spears. Although most of the goblins who had come across the mountains to join the city knew how to hunt, the former Steel Town slaves lacked even those survival skills. Wielding a spear was foreign to them.

Direfang demanded that all the goblins take a turn with the weapons, even the younglings.

“Damn the dragons and bloodragers!” he proclaimed as he raised the sword above his head and brought it down to stop an inch from the ground. “This city will not fall again. The goblins will be prepared for the next monster or enemy that tries to destroy everything the clans have built. Never again will the clans be caught unawares. Never again!”

“Never again!” Jando-Jando echoed. “No more dead goblins. Never. Kill the next monster! Slay the next dragon! Never again.”

“Never again!” repeated Nkunda, the goblin who long before had attacked Direfang in the mines. “Never again! Never again!”

The chant blew across the ruined city like a bitter wind.

Thya’s fingers were splayed across a patch of dirt that had been pebbled and burned by the dragon’s caustic breath. Grallik joined her, pulling up his long tunic and sitting so his knee touched hers. He ran his fingers over the earth and shuddered.

“I feel it,” he said, the awe thick in his voice. He’d been working spells so often with the goblins, mentally digging the earth bowls in particular, that the magic was coming easier to him. “The ground aches, like a man who’s been punched. It is as sterile as a barren woman. Nothing will grow here again.”

Thya shook her head. “A long time from now, things will be better. Time changes all. When all these clans and the offspring of these clans are dust, the earth will heal. That is the way of things, Grallik. The earth always heals.”

“So much wisdom in you.”

She cocked her head.

“I was in Steel Town, you know,” he said softly.

Thya and her clan had not been among the mining camp slaves. She had heard Mudwort’s call and followed them through the Nerakan mountains. She did not know Grallik’s past.

“I was a Dark Knight.”

Thya nodded. “Heard the stories. A Gray Robe, I heard.” She pursed her lips as if she’d bitten into something sour.

“And I thought goblins were stupid things. Then.” Grallik studied a spot on the ground. He was silent for a moment, the chant of “Never again” reaching his ears. “Then, I thought that, Thya. But since, I have learned a lot from Mudwort.”

“Mudwort says the Gray Robe starves for magic.”

It was his turn to cock his head.

“Maybe I do,” he said, bemused. He splayed his hands next to hers, just as Graytoes joined them. “Yes, I think I do.”

She sat next to Thya, placing Umay between them. “Moon-eye said there was magic in here.” She pointed to her heart. “Used it with Moon-eye, sniffing through the ground.”

“Used it with me to fight the dragon. Use it again,” Thya encouraged.

Graytoes leaned over and kissed Umay on the forehead. The baby cooed. She copied Grallik and Thya, but her fingers did not sink into the earth as theirs did. “Not much magic then and now.” She made a tsking sound. “Certainly not much help now. Sorry.”

The chant of “Never again!” grew louder.

Mudwort settled next to Graytoes, taking her hand and tugging it under the surface, teasing what little magical energy she possessed and urging it to grow.

Graytoes gasped in surprise and slammed her eyes shut.

“Direfang says look for dragons,” Mudwort told her. “Look for more dragons now.”

“But there’s something else you look for, isn’t there?” Grallik whispered.

Mudwort made a sputtering sound. “Direfang is worried about dragons and bloodragers.”

Their senses joined and spiraled out, giving them the sensation of flying over that section of the Qualinesti Forest. They headed south, the direction from whence the dragon came. Graytoes made little childlike sounds as they went.

The ancient woods looked markedly different from above, the sun so bright and unobstructed that it was hurtful, and the greens were varied and intense. The air smelled fresher and was thick with scents of flowers that grew near the top of the canopy. They breathed deep and held in the sweetness, as it masked the stench from the dragon’s breath, the burned goblin corpses, and their own sweat. They dipped lower, like a bird cutting through a gap in the branches and swooping down over the bluff to skim the river, then entered the young pine forest.

“Higher,” Thya suggested. “The air is better.”

“But not too high. It is harder to see bloodragers and dragons and other things with sharp teeth and claws when you are up too high,” Graytoes said, adding, “Dizzy higher.”

They compromised, hurtling along several feet above the earth and just above the lowest branches, Thya leading them. Scattered amid the pines were maples and hickories, and there was a small grove of walnut trees where a herd of deer grazed.

“Tell the Boarhunters,” Graytoes said. “Tasty deer.”

“Later,” said Grallik.

It felt like they searched for hours, long enough for the chanting of “Never again!” to have stopped and for a break to have been called in Direfang’s drilling. They persisted, finding a trio of massive boars, and floating through a grove of cherry trees that were overgrown with ivies and thistles.

There were no signs of large predators, however, so Thya took them north, coming back across the river, where the Fishgatherers were bringing in nets.

“Not everyone prepares for a fight,” Mudwort observed.

“Someone has to find food,” Thya said.

Mudwort started to pull away from the others, but Thya’s magic drew her back.

“Not done yet,” she told Mudwort. “Look to the farther north now.”

Mudwort scowled. “A little north. And just for a little while. Then Direfang should know there are no more dragons.”

Grallik took the lead, the first time he had done so on one of their magical expeditions. Thya drifted to the background, allowing the wizard to pull them. Mudwort snorted, following.

“Curious where the man will take us,” Thya whispered to Graytoes. “North and north and north.”

“Grallik lived in these woods a long time ago,” Mudwort added. “Direfang said Grallik was scarred here in a fire.”

Orvago padded over to the small circle, regarding each participant before bending over to tickle Umay’s chin. The baby grabbed his hairy finger and giggled.

“Your magic is fascinating,” the gnoll told them, though they were concentrating. “Perhaps I could find a way to join in.”

“Shh!” That was whispered by Grallik, who was taking their senses in a serpentine pattern, first low to the ground then circling higher, unknowingly close to the spot where Mudwort buried the group of knights who’d caught her.

“Done yet?” Graytoes yawned. “So tired.”

“The magic is draining,” Mudwort explained. “Time to be done.”

“Yes,” Grallik admitted. “But wait.”

Their senses hovered in a clearing where the remains of a campfire smoldered. A thin wisp of smoke curled up from charred logs that had been kicked apart.

Orvago knelt next to Umay and peered at the goblins’ and Grallik’s submerged hands. The ground around their wrists was hard and dry. “Curious,” he said.

“Curious, certainly,” Thya said. “Look closer at the fire.” She forced their senses down, until they could see the bones of a small animal, a rabbit perhaps, with scraps of fur.

“Something ate here,” Grallik said. “Several somethings.”

There was a pile of bones and stripped hide nearby, and the ground was disturbed, clumps of grass and ferns torn up. A scrap of black cloth dangled from a high-growing thorn bush. A tributary gurgled a few yards away, and they hovered above it, the sun so bright on the water that it showed through to the gravel bottom. Small, silver fish swam in a cluster.

Grass on both banks had been tamped down, and in bare spots footprints could clearly be observed.

“Men,” Thya said.

“Not dragons or bloodragers like Direfang worries over,” Mudwort said. “Just men. They are not so dangerous as dragons and bloodragers.”

“How many?” asked Graytoes. “Don’t like them, men.”

“And where have they gone?” Grallik mused.

“Doesn’t matter how many,” Mudwort said. “Graytoes is tired and-”

Grallik tugged their senses west, following the tributary and the occasional print of a heel that had sunk into the soft earth. “Many men,” he said softly. “I do not like this.”

“Don’t like men at all. Don’t like-” Suddenly Graytoes collapsed, exhausted and drained. Orvago gently dug her hands free from the earth and laid her next to Umay.

Yet Grallik, Thya, and Mudwort continued their magical journey to another clearing. That one was much larger than the last they’d looked at, and it was filled with men in armor.

“Worse than a dragon,” Grallik said. “Dark Knights.”

Mudwort had a difficult time counting numbers. But it looked to her that there were quite a few more than five hundred and forty.

“A great many Dark Knights,” Thya said in awe.

“No wonder the old willow worries,” Orvago observed.

NO NEED TO FEAR THE DARK KNIGHTS

The Dark Knights cannot find this city with magic,” Draath insisted. “Only with their eyes. Goblins worry about the Dark Knights, and the wizard worries about the Dark Knights. Silly to worry so. The Dark Knights might never find this place. Safe here.” He gestured up the bluff to the stone spire. “Explained this to Direfang. The magic in the stone does not let the Dark Knights look here with their spells. Explained this to Direfang before and before.”

And he was trying to explain it to Mudwort and Thya and Graytoes, growing exasperated and rubbing the nose of one of his shrunken heads as he repeated what he understood about the protective markings on the spire. “The Dark Knights cannot find us.”

“With magic,” Thya repeated.

Around them was a blur of activity. Goblins continued to practice their fighting skills while clans fashioned spears and clubs. The Boarhunters worked on making bows and arrows, while Olag happily formed arrowheads from pieces of obsidian and slate.

“I understand,” Grallik said, approaching them, Qel a few steps behind. “I should have realized what the stone was when I examined it earlier. Perhaps I was too preoccupied with something else.” He paused and tipped his head back, his hair falling away from his scarred face. “Regardless of what the stone prevents, the Dark Knights pose a serious threat. Armed and armored, they can decimate these clans if they find us. Easily they can conquer us if wizards and priests are among them.”

Though Grallik had been learning the goblins’ language, he still did not have all the nuances, and he got many of the words wrong. Mudwort grudgingly translated the ones he had missed.

“No reason to fear the Dark Knights,” Draath countered stubbornly. “No reason for knights to bother with goblins. The knights must be in the forest for another reason. Maybe-”

Mudwort and Graytoes snarled practically in unison. “Dark Knights enslave goblins,” Graytoes ventured. “Dark Knights want to catch goblins to take back to that horrible mining camp. The Skinweavers were not slaves and do not understand.”

Grallik shook his head. “Graytoes is right. The knights …”

He paused as a few dozen Flamegrass clansmen rushed past them, carrying spears in need of stone heads. Their excited chatter sounded like a swarm of insects.

When they were out of sight, Grallik continued. “The knights want to make an example of you. Of all the goblins here.”

Mudwort nodded, thinking Grallik’s guesswork was very good and that it was saving her the bother of warning Direfang of what she knew. “The knights cannot let slaves escape without punishment. Such would encourage other slaves to escape elsewhere.”

“The Dark Knights must forever look strong and unchallengeable,” Grallik finished, eyeing Mudwort. “So it is our task to use our magic in defense. I will find out more about them, get a better idea about their number and what magic they have and where they are going. Then we must plan and act.”

“A wizard,” Mudwort added. “The knights have a wizard.” She remembered one of the knights who’d caught her mentioning someone named Isaam. “Isaam,” she supplied. “A wizard named Isaam.”

“A sorcerer, not a wizard.” Grallik’s pale skin appeared to grow even lighter. “How do you know of Isaam, Mudwort? And why are you so certain that a magic-user named Isaam is with them?”

Mudwort’s brow furrowed and she shrugged. She couldn’t afford to tell them of her capture and subsequent bloody escape. Then she’d be scorned for not revealing the Dark Knight threat earlier. Direfang would be furious with her, as it would have given him several more days to prepare or to move. He’d banished Skakee; maybe he would banish her. And would that be a bad thing? She shrugged again. “Isaam. It’s a name. Heard it somewhere. Maybe through the vision spell. Is it important?”

“Who is Isaam?” wondered Graytoes. She rocked Umay and looked from Grallik to Mudwort. “Isaam. Isaam. Isaam.”

Grallik stared at Mudwort and opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off.

“Grallik fears the Dark Knights,” Mudwort said. She looked at Draath. “Grallik used to be a Dark Knight. Used to be one of the slavers at Steel Town.” She knew that Draath and the rest of the Skinweavers had learned only a little about the mining camp. They’d been kept too busy working on the city and the weapons to learn very much about the Steel Town clans.

“The Dark Knights want Grallik as much as the Dark Knights want goblins. Maybe more.” Mudwort made a guess there, but the wizard’s narrowed eyes told her she was right. “The Dark Knights would punish Grallik, maybe more than the once-slaves would be beaten.” She stepped back as Draath started peppering Grallik with questions about Steel Town and slaving and Dark Knights.

Graytoes was so caught up in trying to figure out what the wizard was saying in reply that she didn’t notice Mudwort slip away. Thya watched Mudwort go but kept silent.

Mudwort disappeared behind a row of goblins practicing with spears. She intended to get her own spear but not one of the crude ones with the sharp, obsidian heads. She would get the one Chislev had forgotten. She would do it without the others.

“Waited long enough,” Mudwort mumbled as she passed by Qel and Orvago. The two of them were arguing, the angriest of the words coming from Qel. She slipped behind the pair then scurried under the canopy of one of the large willows. She half expected to find someone hiding from work or weapons practice there. But no, there she was alone and could look for the spear.

She squatted and drove her fingers into the ground, her mind casting a spell and pushing her senses in the direction she thought the spear was buried. It took her only a few moments to find the connection and create the thread that stretched between her and the ancient, god-made weapon. It was easy, with the spear so intensely magical and her familiarity with its pulse, and because she’d looked in on it several times.

“No more waiting,” Mudwort said. She wrapped her mind around the spear, and though her fingers were in the dirt, it felt as though they were curled around the haft. The polished wood felt smooth and good. “So powerful.” Her heart beat in time with the pulse, and slowly she pulled her mind back to get a better picture of the clearing where the spear was lying. “With this spear, there is no need to fear any Dark Knights.”

Ash trees circled its resting place, stoic guardians that shaded the spear’s grave, perfectly spaced as if they’d been planted thusly on purpose. The more she stared at the clearing, the more certain she was that nature had not scattered the trees there; some force-the long-ago goblins perhaps-had done it in that way to mark the spot so it could be more easily found. There were other trees of course, maples and oaks and things she had no name for but which dropped little flower and seed pods. There were trilliums-more colors than the ones growing around the goblin city-and ferns and moss that looked soft to sleep on. She had to look very hard to see tiny patches of bare dirt.

There were animals, too, birds mostly, and when Mudwort concentrated, she could hear the caw of a crow. It was a big one, perched in a red-leaved maple, the branches of which poked between two ash trees. The bird was stark against the brightly colored leaves and flew off as she magically watched it. More interesting were birds she guessed were no larger than her fist. There were several, all with black caps and bibs, white cheeks, and backs the color of chestnuts. They made a funny chirping-clicking sound, nothing like singing. She preferred birds that sang.

There were ones even smaller, dark brown with black backs and gray patches that wrapped around their heads like scarves. They had pink bellies, and they didn’t sing either. But they whistled, and Mudwort focused on their pleasant whistling.

Why had the shaman from the long-ago time hidden the spear there? In a place where the birds didn’t sing? Or had it been that shaman’s successor who buried the spear? Had the shaman possessed the spear until her death? Had she passed it on? Mudwort had not looked in on her counterpart from the past in a long while. She’d been more interested in the spear.

Obsessed with the spear? She was that.

She would look to the past later, after she had the spear. She would see what befell the shaman and the ancient tribe of goblins who built homes like the ones Direfang tried to copy in his city. Had dragons and bloodragers pestered the long-ago goblins?

Mudwort’s senses floated above the ring of ash trees, trying to get a better picture of where in that massive forest the spear was. Not far away, she’d determined that before.

But the forest was dense, and many parts looked the same from above or inside.

“Where?” she whispered. “Where? Where? Where?”

Her ears detected a river nearby. No, a stream, too narrow and shallow looking to constitute a river. It flowed to the sea. She knew that because she could smell salty air. A glance to the east, and she spotted the ocean. Higher, and a crescent-shaped stretch of beach came into view.

“S’dard!” She spotted a rock formation in the shallows, looking like a fish rising on its tail. It was where the longboats had brought the goblins ashore when they first came to the forest. She’d been so close to the spear then and had not realized it. “S’dard! Sour mind. Sour, sour mind.”

What she’d thought would be a long day’s walk to retrieve her prize would be three or four or more. Likely more.

“S’dard to not get it before. S’dard to wait.” The ground softened around her fingers, and she pulled them out and stomped off to the northeast, cutting blithely through a rank of goblins drilling with spears and nearly getting skewered.

Someone called to her. It was a goblin’s voice, not a hobgoblin’s, so it was not Direfang. She increased her pace and practically ran down the rise where the half-constructed homes that had been ruined by the dragon were spread. Goblins there were collecting what pieces of wood could be turned into weapons.

“Dark Knights and dragons and bloodragers,” she cursed. “Nowhere is safe.”

But she’d seen no Dark Knights or other foul creatures near the circle of ash trees. Her treasure was at least safe.

“Chislev’s spear is safe,” she said to herself. She ducked behind a large bush as several Boarhunters rushed by. When they were gone, she hurried to follow the path that would take her to the precious artifact. “And soon it will be Mudwort’s.”

ONE HEALER LESS

I am leaving,” Qel solemnly told Grallik, speaking in the common tongue, which not many of the goblins understood. She faced the half-elf, who was still with Draath and Graytoes. “I told Orvago, and I thought I should tell you.”

The wizard looked at her, mildly taken aback. “Now?” He gestured at the ruins. “With Dark Knights in the woods, goblins still nursing injuries from the dragon attack and-”

“It is not my responsibility, the health of thousands of goblins. I am not enough to make a difference.” She drew herself up, looking tall and stately and at the same time young and vulnerable. “Orvago is a healer too. I simply don’t want to see more fighting and dying. And if there is indeed more fighting, with beasts or men, then it is up to the gods to save these goblins.”

“What if the gods are saving these goblins through your presence?”

She scowled at the notion. “I was wrong to ever come here.”

“They need you, Qel.”

“They need your fire spells far more than they need my mending.” She blew out a breath, teasing the pale strands of hair that hung against her forehead. “Why are you here, Grallik? I can tell you’ve no love for the goblins and hobgoblins. You’re not fond of them. You’re no hero trying to help them carve a nation.”

“No,” he admitted.

“The one you call Foreman orders you around, and you do his bidding with only whispered complaints. Why are you here? You could leave with me. I’d prefer company in my walk to the beach.”

“I’m here for the magic.” Grallik surprised himself by telling her the truth. “You’ve seen the goblins pool their energies to cast spells. I have learned how to join them. It’s magic such as I’d never been able to cast before. And I have so very much more to learn. It’s all about the magic, Qel.”

She gave him an incredulous look. “Magic?” She brushed idly at a spot on her tunic and shook her head. “You will stay here? With all this death and stench, you will stay? Just for magic? I came here to help these goblins. I thought I could make a difference. I thought I was kind and compassionate, selfless. I thought I could make whatever sacrifices necessary to help.”

“You’ve helped saved lives, and-”

“It was all bluster and foolish pride. I was filled with noble thoughts … when my feet were firmly planted on Schallsea Island. I’m not who I thought myself to be … or who I wanted to be.” She crossed her arms plaintively, as if hugging herself. “I was all talk, and when I got here, when we got here, I realized my words were all hollow. I am going home, Grallik.”

“Where life is easy.”

“Easier. And where I belong.”

He studied her, looking down when Graytoes tugged on his leggings.

“Something wrong, Grallik?” She spoke in the common tongue, but Grallik knew she had only a smattering of the words in her head, so her sentences were clumsy. “Hurt someone? Sick?”

Draath chatted quietly in goblinspeak to Sallor, who’d joined them, Grallik not catching everything that was said, but they were not paying attention to Qel. They were speculating on which spells would be best against the Dark Knights.

“Nothing is wrong,” Grallik told Graytoes.

“Besides Dark Knights coming,” she corrected.

“Besides that.” Grallik turned back to Qel. “I think you told me you’re leaving so that I would try to talk you out of it.”

She hugged herself tighter. “No. There’s no talking me out of anything. I’d merely hoped you’d leave with me. Orvago intends to stay. Maybe forever. He loves these woods.” She whirled and strode away, heading toward a satchel that sat at the base of a dead oak.

“Qel leaving?” Graytoes tugged on his leggings again. She understood more than she let on sometimes.

“Apparently,” Grallik answered crisply. “You should tell Direfang. He’ll want to know that his city has lost one of its healers.” Softer, he added, “The more proficient of the two.”

Graytoes poked out her bottom lip, and Grallik repeated his instructions using as many goblin words as he could.

“Direfang will be unhappy,” Graytoes offered.

“Yes, I should think he will.”

She clutched Umay close and went to find the hobgoblin.

Grallik went in search of a small patch of ground free of goblins. “If Draath the head-shrinker is right, the knights can’t see me,” he said to himself. “The spire stops your scrying, Isaam.” He touched his fingers to the ground, twirling a thumb in a long strand of grass. “Hopefully, however, I can see you.”

He’d used the earth-magic only a few times on his own, meeting with limited success. For a moment he considered calling Thya and Draath and asking them to merge their magic with his.

And he’d do that if he were unsuccessful. But for just a little while, he wanted to try alone. Shutting out the sounds of shouts and wooden weapons clacking together, feet pounding across the ground, he sent his eyes into the earth then skimming above it. He was like a thrown rock hurtling into an unknown distance.

The sensation was dizzying, and he suddenly felt weak. He had no one to share the burden of casting his spell, and all the energy to power it was coming solely from him. He pressed on, taking slower breaths and concentrating on only sight and hearing. He couldn’t care less what the woods smelled like or what the air felt like. Limiting his senses seemed to help, as then the spell did not appear to sap quite as much strength from him.

He could not tell how much time passed as he went from one clearing to the next, across a stream, and to a section of the woods that must have been an orchard at one time. But his back felt stiff from being in one position for so long, and his legs ached after a while. An hour maybe? No. One of the more curious goblins would have disturbed him before that much time passed. Neither could he tell how far his mind had traveled in terms of miles.

Grallik was just about to give up and find Thya to ask her for help when he spied the sun glinting off something shiny.

“Armor.”

He focused, suffering light-headedness from the exertion but feeling rewarded. He heard the rhythmic clanking of men in plate armor walking and the soft swish of tabards and scabbards brushing against the foliage. It was some time before he heard a human voice, and it was a deep male command calling a halt. Another voice, clipped and female, gave instructions.

The female came into view at the center of a column of hundreds of men.

“Bera Kata.”

Grallik ground his teeth together. He’d seen her once, though they’d never met. And he knew quite a bit about her; he doubted there was a Dark Knight serving in Neraka who hadn’t heard of Bera Kata.

Stern, icy, fanatical, single-minded, and driven to succeed, she had won several campaigns against superior forces of Solamnic Knights and rebels. She had a husband and a daughter, but beyond that he knew nothing of her personal life. She was usually called in to fix problems, and the escaped slaves would count as a big problem.

Grallik had never before seen the man towering at her side, the one who’d bellowed an order to halt. He wore blued plate, a sign of wealth and station, yet he evinced neither decorations nor insignia that indicated his rank. And there was the sorcerer, who stood out because he was the only one not wearing armor.

“Isaam Saeneav of Nordmaar.”

He’d briefly met the man better than a dozen years earlier. Isaam hadn’t changed much; he was still small, with overly thin arms that reminded Grallik of a bird’s legs. The face was a little fuller, though, which made the sorcerer’s dark eyes look smaller, like pebbles sitting on white sand. The sorcerer was known for embracing the darkest parts of magic, a path Grallik would have followed had he not been so obsessed with fire spells.

Scanning the mass of knights, Grallik didn’t recognize any of the others, though he admittedly wasn’t taking any time to linger on the faces-for there were too many faces to contemplate. He tried to guess how many … eight hundred at least, probably nine. He shivered. And there could be more, scattered scouting parties, all connected by Isaam’s magic. They could well find Direfang’s goblins. And while there were thousands of goblins, most training to fight, they would not be skilled or fast enough to deal with so many Dark Knights.

The hundreds of knights-Grallik continued to be amazed by their number-all had come chasing after the escaped slaves from Neraka, all chasing him. The Order could not have spared that many from one spot, especially given the number lost to the volcanoes and earthquakes only a few months past. So they must have been collected from many squads and postings.

The Dark Knights had been fragmented at the end of the War of Souls. Their base of power was returned to Neraka, and not all the Dark Knights answered to the Lord Knight there. No longer the great, unified force that it once was made that group of several hundred knights all the more impressive.

“So where did you all come from?” Grallik’s senses drifted from one group of knights to the next, listening to hushed conversations. He knew they would not rest long; Bera Kata was a determined soul.

“The Black Hall,” Grallik mused. He heard a couple of the knights mention that place. He recalled there being enclaves of Dark Knights in the Qualinesti Forest, and thus the enclave of the Black Hall must have dispatched knights to join Bera’s force. There were women knights too, but most were men. He spotted half-elves here and there, but most were human.

Some of the men talked about the swarms of gnats that pestered them, and how no insect dared to land on Isaam. Grallik smiled at that. Others speculated about the scouting parties, one of which apparently could not be located. Grallik smiled wider.

“Let them all get lost in these woods,” he hissed. “Lost forever, food for the bloodragers.” At one time he was fanatically loyal to the Order, working at the mining camp to turn their ore into steel that could be forged into shields and swords. Had the earthquakes not come and the volcanoes not erupted, he’d be there still, loyal still. But when Steel Town was destroyed, so too were sundered his ties to the knighthood. Survival became his priority-along with pursuing the magic the goblins alone knew how to cast.

“Let the knights get back on their ships and return to their enclaves. Let them-”

Sounds interrupted his thoughts. Goblins drilled close to him, and he heard Graytoes and Direfang talking. The hobgoblin growled at the news of Qel’s departure and called to Rustymane and Gralin to take her swiftly away to the coast.

At the same time in the distant clearing, Grallik heard someone call an end to the brief rest. Dark Knights stood and adjusted their tabards, took a sip from their water skins, and returned to formation. The break had been a short one.

Definitely more than eight hundred knights, Grallik decided. He pushed his senses to the front rank, where Bera Kata stood unusually close to the young knight in the blued armor. Nearby was Isaam, adjusting his gray robe, frayed along the hem.

Once Grallik had been like him, a member of the Order of the Thorn, the arcane arm of the Dark Knights. The half-elf used to take great pride in wearing the robe the color of cool ashes. He’d given his robe up willingly when he joined the goblins, however, removing it and standing before them in a sweat-stained under-tunic. Thorn Knights had been tasked since the branch’s inception with divining the future of the knighthood and the events around them. Counselors and aides, they were also among the most formidable spellcasters in Ansalon, who before the Chaos War believed their magic came directly from Takhisis.

“One who follows the heart finds it will bleed. Feel nothing but victory,” Grallik murmured to himself. That was the code of the Thorn Knights; he’d repeated it several times each day in Steel Town. “But now I wish you nothing but defeat.”

Isaam raised his head and nodded to something Bera had said. The sorcerer tugged the wrinkles out of his robes, and Grallik noted he wore the rank of Marshal of the Thorn-the seventh rank such a knight could attain, bestowed by the Order of Lords. The half-elf wizard had been formerly known as Guardian N’sera, a rank that stood three levels below Isaam’s.

“Lose yourself in these woods, Isaam.”

Grallik’s eyes grew wide and his breath caught.

It looked as if Isaam were staring straight back.

THREE HUNDRED FEWER MOUTHS TO FEED

Amid the flurry of drilling and weapons-making, more than three hundred goblins gathered up their meager possessions and struck out to the east, intending to find caves in the distant mountains to live in. From various clans, they had grumbled about the threats in the forest, about Direfang’s being a lure for monstrous creatures, about the threat of Dark Knights.

“Dragons, bloodragers, beasts come here,” said Geben, a yellow-skinned goblin who had insinuated himself with the Fishgatherers. “So it is good to leave here and go somewhere else. The dragons can eat those who stay in the city.”

“There is no city,” said Worlee. He had been one of the hardest workers when the goblins had first chopped down trees. “There will be no city. There will only be more death.”

Direfang had tried to stop the defectors. There were too many to lose. “Safety in numbers,” he’d warned. “Strong in numbers.” His words had kept most of the Fishgatherer clan from leaving and had boosted the morale of a few hobgoblins.

“Bad enough there are dragons and bloodragers,” Graytoes said, waving to the departing goblins. “Worse now that there are Dark Knights.” She held Umay up so the baby could watch the departing throng, helping her wave bye-bye. “Direfang, harder to fight the things in the forest now. Fewer goblins to fight.”

Keth pointed out the breakaway group was taking some of the weapons with them.

“Did not take food, though,” Graytoes said cheerfully. “Three hundred fewer mouths to feed now. Time to feed Umay.” She retreated to a group of goblins who were putting fletching on arrows. A goat was staked near them, and she started to milk it.

“They took weapons,” Keth repeated. “Should not have let them take the weapons, Direfang. That was a bad thing.”

“Then it is time to make more weapons,” Direfang said testily. “More and more and more weapons.”

The noise was loud in the ruined city: knives and swords clanking against each other, goblins calling out as they continued to craft spears and clubs, and more goblins drilling with the finished ones.

“Too loud, all of this,” Direfang said.

“Yes,” Keth said. He looked up and saw the wizard approach, shook his head, and hobbled away to help a goblin named Badger cut logs for clubs.

“Yes, it is too loud,” Grallik agreed. “No doubt this ruckus carries for quite some distance, Foreman.” He tipped his head back. “But a storm is coming, and that will help cover a little of this noise, I think. And the noise is good if it means more weapons.”

The wind had picked up in the brief time since the three hundred goblins left. “Not a storm as strong as the one the other day,” Direfang said, adding, “I hope.”

“No. Not from the looks of it. But a far greater storm is coming, Foreman.” Grallik continued to peer at the sky. “If the Dark Knights are able to find us despite that magic in your old stone, a lot of goblins will die. You have numbers, I’ll grant you that. But they have far more skills. And their weapons are far superior.”

“Worried?” Direfang poked a taunting finger into Grallik’s shoulder, the force nearly toppling the wizard. “If the Gray Robe is so worried, better follow those goblins.” He gestured in the direction of the mountains. “Free to go.”

Grallik raised an eyebrow. At one point Direfang had called him a slave, and the hobgoblin had been ordering him around since the exodus from Steel Town. He had never felt free to do anything.

“Grallik is free to go,” Direfang repeated.

“They’ll kill me as fast as they’d kill any of you, the Dark Knights,” Grallik said. He stared past Direfang, eyes following a young goblin dragging a half dozen heavy clubs. The sky rumbled, and the goblin stopped and looked up. “I prefer my chances here. I’m a traitor as far as they’re concerned.”

“Worse than a traitor,” Direfang observed.

“Yes, I suppose I am. And I suspect they will kill me slowly. So I’ll stay, Foreman. I’ll cast my lot with you and-”

“Because of the magic Mudwort teaches.”

Grallik stared, not replying immediately. “Because there is some safety in your greater numbers. Better than if I was on my own.” The wizard looked away from the young goblin and instead stared up the bluff at Direfang’s spire. “I hope you have a plan,” he added, “beyond simply and foolishly waiting here to fight hundreds of trained, dedicated Dark Knights.”

“I have a plan for you,” the hobgoblin shot back. He pointed to where the ruined homes stretched, the wood all taken for weapons. All that remained were earth bowls. “Mudwort is gone, and much spell work needs to be done, Gray Robe. Who knows when Mudwort will come back? Meanwhile, your job is waiting.”

Grallik looked around. “Mudwort, gone?”

“Thya saw Mudwort leave.” Again Direfang pointed to the ruined homes. “No one saw Mudwort return. She comes and goes. But she’ll be back. You can go but not come back. If you stay, then there is spell work to be done. Understand?”

Grallik rubbed his chin. “Yes, I understand.”

Direfang left the wizard to find Draath and Olag and any other goblins known to have a spark of magic.

Direfang met with Orvago next. The hobgoblin thought the gnoll looked rather glum, probably because Qel had gone; she was his only link to his former home of Schallsea Island.

“Qel is safe away from here,” the hobgoblin said reassuringly.

The gnoll nodded. “But this place would have been good for her. And she would have been good for it. If there is a war coming …”

“No good can come of Dark Knights and goblins fighting. And no good can come of any war.”

“I could well imagine that you’re tired of all the bloodshed.” The gnoll shrugged. “There may be another outcome this time. If the spire hides us from magical prying, we-”

“How much magic is in here?” Direfang gently jabbed the gnoll’s chest. “Talking to trees, healing. How much is hidden?”

The gnoll stepped away and planted his hand against an oak. “My rapport with nature is considerable, Foreman Direfang.”

“Then there is much work to be done. Stop talking. Go to work.”

The goblins and hobgoblins worked through the night, only Grallik taking a rest, and that was because his eyes were not so keen in the darkness. The storm had held off until the evening, but it came with lots of thunder and gusts of wind. It wasn’t severe, but it drenched everyone and made some of the work difficult.

More goblins threatened to leave, tired of the endless work, ever hungry, and finding little to like about the forest.

“Let the elves take it back, this forest,” Neacha griped. The hobgoblin towered above Keth and shivered as a loud boom of thunder sounded. “The mountain caves are for hobgoblins and goblins. The trees are for elves. Caves would-”

Direfang shook a finger at him. “Gnasher is very smart. Gnasher will help save this city. Talk of leaving must stop.”

Keth stared up at Gnasher, waiting for him to speak; he stood silent, glowering. “No one place is safer than another. I will stay with Direfang and Graytoes and the Boarhunters.”

Direfang’s breath whistled out from between his teeth. “All right, caves were once for goblins and hobgoblins, true. But now the woods belong to the clans. What’s left of this blasted city, that will be for the hated Dark Knights.”

They all looked at him, astonished.

“So if the city is for the Dark Knights, all the clans are leaving?” Keth said. He looked in the direction of the mountains. He couldn’t see the peaks, the foliage thick and the overcast sky making everything dark. “Everyone is leaving?”

“Very soon.” Direfang nodded. “That is my plan. The Dark Knights can have what is left of this damnable city.”

Keth and Gnasher nodded. Even Neacha looked pleased.

Direfang looked around for Mudwort. He had made another decision he almost instantly regretted. He desperately needed her now.

DEAD RECKONING

Bera couldn’t sleep. Curled against Zocci, she listened to his heart and the sound of distant thunder. She carefully extricated herself, not wanting to wake him; rose; and watched fireflies come to ground and rise again. She put on her boots and adjusted her under-tunic, wrinkling her nose at the smell of it and herself.

She needed a bath. All her men could do with one, and there was no river or stream in sight. Isaam had not grumbled lately about the march, but she knew the sorcerer hated the expedition. He wanted an easier posting in a city. She had to admit she wouldn’t mind such an assignment with its abundant supply of water, better food, and a soft place to sleep. Bera looked over her shoulder at Zocci; he was snoring softly.

Better, perhaps, that the Order keep her there-even after she found the goblins and the traitor Grallik N’sera. There she could have Zocci. Elsewhere, and her husband and daughter might come to join her, and the mad affair with Zocci would end. Word might get back to them anyway, about her infidelity. She’d stopped being discreet, thanks to the rigors of the march and the length of time she’d been away from her family-it had been many months since she’d seen them-and, too, she blamed it on Zocci’s continued advances. He’d been persistent.

It was all of those things, coupled with her weakness for someone so young and attractive. Bera knew she would have to be careful; her behavior could not be seen to jeopardize their mission; otherwise, her rank in the Order would suffer.

She padded farther away from him, weaving through the maze of sleeping knights, their snores mingling with the song of crickets and the constant buzz of mosquitoes and gnats. Three small fires burned, but she couldn’t hear their crackle over the other sounds. Sentries were posted near them. Nine, one for each hundred knights. Normally she’d post four or five times that number, but the men were so tired; she’d been pushing them hard. And that many knights camped in the woods had little to fear.

She passed one of the fires and nodded to the sentry. Behind him, the former knight Horace was tied up tight. He slept fitfully, and she hoped his dreams were filled with visions of his death. She would enjoy killing him when he was no longer useful, and she was certain he knew that. Zocci had suggested she was keeping him alive merely because she liked to watch him suffer.

She had no patience for traitors.

Bera did not consider herself a cruel commander; Horace’s death would be a swift one when the time came. Grallik N’sera however ….

“I could not sleep either.”

Bera recognized Isaam’s voice, but she couldn’t see him at first. He stepped from behind a tree, a slash of gray amid the shadows.

“The thunder, I think, kept me restless.” Bera kept her voice down to avoid waking the men. She stepped close.

“It is not loud.” Isaam spoke so softly, Bera could hardly hear him.

“Yet it reminds me of war drums.” Bera gestured with her head, and the two followed a narrow game path that wound between ginkgos and ash.

“But you like war.”

“Aye, Isaam, I do. But I never have liked the drums.”

When they were finally beyond the last of the sleeping men, Isaam tugged on Bera’s tunic. An old friend, he could get away with such a gesture. She stopped and looked down into his fleshy face. The moon emerged from behind a thick cloud, and it reflected off his pale skin. He was sweating, and it wasn’t so warm that evening.

“Isaam, you’re ill?”

He shook his head and wiped at his face with the sleeves of his robe. It smudged dirt across his forehead. “I’ve been using my magic, Bera, to the point where it’s taxed me terribly. I’ve been looking for our absent men.”

“Our scouts.” She nodded and steepled her fingers beneath her chin. “Go on.”

“I accounted for nearly all of them before we stopped. And they’ve nothing to report about goblins. One party did cross paths with a bloodrager.”

Bera cocked her head, unfamiliar with the creature.

“Like an overly large wolf,” Isaam said as way of explanation.

“Go on.”

“But our long-absent force …”

“Donnel and Tannen and-”

“I believe I’ve found them.”

“Then summon them immediately.”

“I cannot lead them to us, Commander. We must go to them. And we should do so quickly.”

Bera had woken the knights promptly, Isaam leading the way and setting a pace slower than usual. It wasn’t until four days later, nearing sunset, that the exhausted army found the clearing where Mudwort had buried Tannen and Donnel.

Animals had unearthed the remains. The dirt in the clearing had been dug up with the efficiency of men using shovels, and bones and pieces of armor were scattered everywhere. Flesh remained here and there; Donnel’s face was easily recognized, though his eyes were gone. Insects were thick, things that crawled on what was left of the bodies and flies that were so numerous they looked like black clouds settled to ground.

The smell was horrid. Bera and many of the knights in the first rank covered their noses with their hands. Some of the men turned away, while others looked on in grim fascination.

“What did this?” Bera was furious, her anger overshadowing any grief she felt for the six men. “The bloodrager you mentioned?”

“A bloodrager certainly would be capable of such,” one of her men answered.

Isaam waved away some of the flies, scowling when they returned quickly to swarm again. “Possibly,” he agreed. “But their bodies were just freshly unearthed when I’d found them. This other damage was done in the time it took us to get here.”

“So something killed and buried them, you’re saying.” Bera stared at a leg bone, maggots thick on a hunk of flesh.

“Or someone.” Isaam walked through the swarm of flies and picked up Donnel’s head. “Let’s find out.”

He retreated to a spot outside the clearing where the insects were not so bothersome. Smoothing at his robe with his free hand, he sat on a patch of thick-bladed grass and crossed his legs, all the while holding Donnel’s head. Isaam set it almost reverently on the ground in front of him, picking a worm out of an eye socket and tossing it away matter-of-factly.

Bera kept a polite distance, Zocci staying behind her and quietly ordering a detail of knights to properly rebury their brethren.

Isaam placed his hands on the sides of the head and leaned forward until his forehead was inches from it. Bera tried unsuccessfully to suppress a shudder. The thing reeked, and her sorcerer friend, so close to it, showed no signs of being bothered by the stench or by the notion of what he was nearly touching.

As she watched, maggots crawled from the scraps of flesh on the head and over Isaam’s fingers.

“They call it the dark side of magic,” Isaam began, “that which lets me speak to the dead.”

Zocci touched Bera’s shoulder. “Is he going to-”

“Shh,” Bera warned. “I’ve seen him do this once before.” That was years past, when she wanted to learn the name of a knight who’d fallen in battle. His wounds had been so grievous that she couldn’t identify him. His blood was still red, and the warmth was just leaving his flesh. She considered that experience far less gruesome than the decomposed head Isaam addressed.

“Perhaps the darkest of magic …” Isaam continued. Then his words became foreign to her. She knew it was an incantation, and the very sound of it sent a shiver down her back. Isaam droned on for long minutes, his voice dropping in tone, and the sounds of men digging proper graves in the earth coming to the fore.

A cloud of insects had followed them there, and Zocci tried unsuccessfully to bat them away from Bera’s face. Despite the stench, Bera stepped closer to Isaam, trying to listen.

When the incantation finished, a new voice rasped. Bera vaguely recognized it; Donnel had been in her company long enough that she knew the sound of his voice. She opened her mouth as if to say something to the grotesquerie that was her former knight. Then she took a step back and bumped into Zocci’s chest. The voice was Donnel’s, but it was emerging from Isaam.

“It was a little, ugly, female goblin, one that had been at the mines. She had whip scars; that was the telling sign that she’d been in Iverton, Steel Town. Her eyes were like little pieces of coal, hard and dark.”

“Defiant,” that was uttered in Isaam’s voice. “You considered the goblin defiant.”

“Yes.” The word was a hiss, like a kettle left too long dangling over a fire. “Despite the pain, defiant. Broke her fingers, her leg, punched her. We brought her close to death-too close, Tannen thought. Should have taken her to Zocci.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Isaam told the spirit.

Bera found it disconcerting not only that Isaam talked to the spirit but that he carried on a conversation seemingly with himself. Both voices continued to issue from his mouth.

“Yes,” the spirit replied. “She would have killed us anyway, the ugly little goblin. She gave up her secrets because she knew we would not live to take the news to Commander Kata. She answered our questions to toy with us.” The spirit’s voice came faster, with Isaam sucking in great gulps of air. “More powerful than you, sorcerer, that goblin is. She ordered the ground to swallow us up. She turned it to quicksand beneath our feet, and it pulled us down like being drawn into the Abyss.”

“Not possible,” Isaam cut in.

“You know it to be true,” the spirit answered flatly. “I can tell no lies.”

Bera edged closer again, cupping her hand over her nose and mouth in a futile attempt to cut the stench. Zocci stayed close behind her.

“Then she turned the quicksand to stone as hard as granite. She crushed our legs and ribs. The pain she gave us was unbearable.”

“She did not kill you right away?”

“No, sorcerer. She asked us questions first, gained our secrets, I say.” The spirit’s voice faltered but continued. “We gave up everything we knew. Gave up Commander Kata. Gave up you. The oath we took meant nothing compared to the pain we felt.”

Isaam looked away from the skull and caught Bera’s gaze.

“You wish more from his spirit? I’ll hold him here as long as you want. He wants to return to the Gray.”

The Gray was the place where spirits were said to meander, close to the world of the living but unable to reach it.

Bera stared at the maggots crawling over Isaam’s fingers. One disappeared up his sleeve. “Yes. I want more. He said the goblin gave up secrets as well. What did she tell them?”

“That she was indeed from Steel Town. That the other escaped slaves are in the woods. She told us where to find all of them, and that their leader is named Direfang. He perches himself above their camp, on a bluff over a river. She betrayed them only because she thought word would never reach you.”

Bera turned and passed by Zocci. “Let his spirit go, Isaam. Zocci, see that the head is buried with its body. We have a priest in our midst who will give the proper rites.” More softly, she added, “And soon Horace will also give rites over Grallik N’sera’s corpse.”

She hurried around the clearing where the knights continued to dig deep, even graves. The flies persisted as she made her way. She was looking for one knight in particular.

“Zathor,” she said to one group of knights after the other. “Where is Zathor?”

A lieutenant caught her attention and directed her to the north.

“He should be near the front, not the back,” she cursed. “He has the maps.”

Finally she found him. “Your maps, Zathor,” she ordered brusquely.

He nodded and swung his pack off his back. She motioned to a knight with a torch. “Light it. The sun is gone, and I need to see.”

Bera was impatient, and after a few moments, she grabbed the torch from the knight and lit it herself. Zathor spread a series of maps across the ground, holding them in place with rocks. She looked from one to the next, studying terrain features and straining to read tiny marks about elevations.

“Some of these are older than others. Things have grown and overgrown,” Zathor tried to explain. “But they’re all I have to work with.”

“Too many streams and rivers,” she said. “This damnable forest is too damn big.” She reached her free hand to the back of her neck and scratched it then crouched to get a better look, careful to keep the torch from catching anything on fire.

“Commander?” Zathor set down the final map and placed rocks on top of it to keep it down in place. “What are you looking for?”

“Goblins,” she muttered. “Damnable goblins in this damnable forest.” After a pause, she added, “And a traitor.”

She told him about the bluff and the river. After a few moments of scrutiny, he pointed to a spot on the closest map.

“This could be it, Commander. I don’t believe we’re far from here. Less than a day or two’s march.”

She straightened and thrust the torch into another knight’s hand. Zathor took great care refolding his maps. “Give that one map to Tavor,” she told him. “He’s our best scout, and I want him to follow this as best as possible. Move out soon!”

“Aye, Commander.”

“Horace!” Another knight gave her directions to where the prisoner could be found. She came up to him with a fierce expression. “Your prayers over our fallen brothers had best be short.”

MUDWORT’S OBSESSION

Mudwort was sitting, touching the ground, and after a moment sinking her fingers in, looking for her obsession: the spear.

Mudwort had never been taught magic, as she knew Grallik had. She couldn’t read a spell book or a magical scroll even if she desperately wanted to; she couldn’t read. She accidentally learned of her inner arcane spark several years earlier, shortly after being captured by the ogres and sold to work in Steel Town. When her hours in the mine got longer and longer, she started imagining the stones talked to her. At first she thought her mind had gone sour, but eventually she discovered the stones really were speaking and that she’d merely discovered a way to listen to it. It wasn’t language in the way one goblin talked to another, but emotions and impressions she learned to understand.

It took her a while to steadily and secretly hone her skills, and in the process she learned to sense where the richest veins of ore were, discovering places where the stone was either weak or especially strong, and finally discovering how to send her senses through rocks to see other places and creatures. Mingling her magic with others, such as Thya and Grallik, came later, much later. Steel Town seemed a long time in the past.

Since coming to the forest, she had become obsessed with the shaman from the long-ago time-that shaman and her clan and the spear. That was why Mudwort had come to the forest to begin with.

Her name had been Saarh, and when first Mudwort glimpsed her, she was little more than a youngling holding court deep in a cave in the mountains. That was before Mudwort realized she was looking through time as well as through the earth and that Saarh had been dead more years or decades than Mudwort could count.

The ancient clan had a form of writing, but no goblins she knew of wrote. They were learned. Their leader was wise. Mudwort had tried to follow them through the stone and years.

When last she had looked in, Saarh had wrinkles at the edges of her eyes, and her face was pockmarked-she was well into middle age. 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 put there, as it was crusted with blood, and there was a feather and a bead on a string hanging from her left ear.

It was clear all the goblins around Saarh treated her with respect and followed her orders. Most of those goblins were red-skinned, like Mudwort, but there were some brown-skinned goblins too, and a few were tinged orange.

Mudwort thrust her hands in deeper, her fingers undulating like thick earthworms. “Where?” she said. “Where? Where? Where is Saarh now?” She remembered back to the clearing that the ancient goblins had come to after leaving their caverns. It was near the spot Direfang might try to rebuild his city … if the Dark Knights didn’t get him first. She would try to go there.

The years and miles melted in a heartbeat as Mudwort sought out Saarh. At the same time she kept a hold of the thread that connected her to the spear. The greens of the woods swirled in front of her in a dizzying mix. When they stopped spinning, dozens of goblins stood around her. But they weren’t really there, she knew; they were all long dead with shattered pieces of bones. Their images were not real; they were inside her head.

Several of the ancient goblins wore necklaces made of wood and stone and the teeth of small animals that lived underground that were strung on thin cords. Some had feathers and claws on thicker leather cords, bat ears and wings; and other goblins had pieces of bone pierced through their cheeks and nostrils.

Saarh had worn eight necklaces the last time Mudwort had glimpsed her; at that moment she had nine. The longest necklace hung to just below her waist. It was composed of carved wooden beads, most of them round, but a few that were cut to look like bats. The beads of another necklace had been painted with dyes made from lichen; Mudwort guessed that Saarh favored that one, as she worried at the beads with her slender fingers.

Mudwort gasped when she noted the most beautiful necklace. It was also the shortest one, barely fitting around Saarh’s head. It displayed irregular-shaped beads the color of the full white moon that shone overhead. The beads were smooth, and along their surfaces streaks of blue, pink, and green glistened.

Opals: Mudwort knew the name of the gemstone only because a woman in Steel Town had a brooch made of the stones. Mudwort found it interesting and listened to the woman tell another what the stone was called and that it was both precious and brittle.

Mudwort had a few necklaces too, including a thin, gold chain festooned with sapphires. She tugged one of her hands free from the ground and reached into a pouch at her side. Tiny sapphires filled most of the pouch; they were among the treasures she had taken from a dwarf village south of Steel Town. Grallik had used a great many of the stones to buy ships to bring them to the forest and to purchase supplies. But he didn’t use all of them, and she’d never shown anyone her secret necklace. Her fingers probed to the bottom, and she felt the chain. She gently pulled it out, careful not to lose any of the loose sapphires, and draped the treasure around her head. Somehow the necklace made her seem more important and happy. She wouldn’t wear it around the goblins in Direfang’s ruined city; she didn’t want to risk someone stealing it.

The necklaces marked Saarh as important too. At her shoulder stood an older goblin with a crooked face. Mudwort had seen the older one during previous visions. One of his cheeks was higher than the other, and his lower lip drooped as if the muscles in his jaw didn’t work properly. At first Mudwort had thought the old one stupid, but his eyes were bright and filled with intelligence, and the four necklaces he wore suggested he was important to the clan: Saarh’s consort, likely.

Mudwort had listened to the two of them several times and recalled an argument. The crooked-faced goblin did not want to leave the caves in the mountains, but Saarh insisted, saying food was becoming scarce, and there would be plenty in the woods.

“But the clan will return someday, Saarh. Goblins belong to the earth,” the crooked-faced goblin had said.

“Yes,” Saarh said. “That is also certain, a return.”

“Goblins were meant to live under the press of the dirt and stone.”

Had she truly brought them out of the mountain for food? Mudwort wondered. Or had she, too, touched the spear and let it tug her along on its own path? Mudwort again cursed herself for not going after the spear the moment they’d set foot in the forest, leaving Direfang and everyone else behind in her pursuit of it. She almost let the vision dissolve, so she could renew her quest that very moment. But she lingered and watched, wanting to catch a glimpse of Saarh with the spear again.

Mudwort squeezed her eyes tightly shut and concentrated.

“Remember the vision. Where did Saarh find the spear? Remember it now. Remember!” Within the passing of a few heartbeats, Mudwort saw the sun setting in the back of her mind. Then she saw as Saarh and the crooked-faced goblin-whom she recalled was named Brab-left their large clan behind and walked west.

Mudwort again watched Saarh find the spear.

She watched Saarh rub the stones of her necklaces as she approached the largest oak tree in the young forest.

It was an ugly tree, Mudwort thought, that particular oak more crooked than Brab. It leaned to the north, and its lowest branches were dead. The bark was thick and corky, and its leaves were oval-shaped with bristly edges. The acorns were big, and the cups that held them looked spiky and itchy.

As Mudwort let the vision progress, she saw Saarh gesture and split the trunk. In the next instant, the tree shriveled to a woody pulp, the leaves vanished, and standing where the trunk had been just moments before floated a spear-Chislev’s spear.

Saarh slowly approached the spear, bowed to it, and offered a prayer to Chislev. Mudwort thought her ancient counterpart weak and stupid for worshiping one of Krynn’s gods. But perhaps Saarh simply hadn’t known any better. Saarh stretched a hand out.

The spear was green, as if it had been fashioned from a too-young tree whose bark had been stripped. Slivers of gold, silver, and platinum were inlaid along the shaft. Tiny gems that sparkled in the last rays of the sun were sprinkled among the precious metal runes. Most of them were diamonds, but there were also emeralds and a few yellow-hued stones that looked like pieces of sunlight caught on water.

Its tip was metal, gleaming dully. Just below it was a silver band that held small rings from which dangled dark yellow feathers.

“Chislev’s symbol, these feathers,” Saarh said, as though she were talking to Mudwort. “Chislev’s spear, this. The only weapon our god wielded.” Saarh slowly wrapped the fingers of her right hand around the shaft.

Mudwort could feel the power in the weapon flow into Saarh. She focused all her energy on seeing more.

“What happened to Saarh after that? What? What?

What?” But that part of the vision had concluded. Mudwort saw only a blur of green, like the forest spinning around her, and she saw a finished goblin city, not nearly as large as the one Direfang dreamed of. It was the one the ancient clan had built at Saarh’s direction.

Saarh was there, standing apart from the clan and staring up at the twilight sky, pointing to a star formation and saying that was Chislev’s and that she was Chislev’s too. The spear was firmly in her hand, and Brab was with her, no longer crooked.

“The spear did that, the healing,” Mudwort said to herself. “It made Brab straight and fine-looking, and it made the forest grow.” In the vision, what had been a young wood was lusher, the trees taller. It was a much, much older and richly developed wood than what Saarh and her clansmen had first come upon. “What else can Chislev’s forgotten weapon do? Mudwort’s spear. What else! Is there anything else?”

And why couldn’t she see what had happened between when Saarh gained the spear and when the forest grew? What had she missed?

Mudwort tried something different. She looked ahead, wanting to see what happened next. The green blurred, and her senses whirled until she was weak and dizzy. When the colors stopped shifting, she found herself looking upon a far older forest-indeed, the woods she was physically in. She saw the ground where the ancient goblin village had been, but there were no homes and no goblins anymore. Had they all returned underground, as Saarh predicted they eventually would?

Again and again she searched for the shaman, finding nothing.

“The spear, then,” Mudwort decided. “Wasted enough time on this. Find the spear now. Mudwort’s spear.” Mudwort wondered if maybe she was afraid to find it for some reason. Once she had the spear, her great quest, her obsession, would be over. There’d be nothing left to tug her through the woods, nothing left to seek. Was the search itself more rewarding and exciting?

“No. Find the spear now.” She directed her magical sight to the north and west, following the thread that still connected her. How long she spent searching, she couldn’t guess. But some time, too long, she thought, as her calves ached and her neck cramped.

“There it is. Not far now.”

Her mind touched a rotting cloth that at one time had been fine and elaborate, with silver, gold, and platinum metallic threads running through it. Tiny pearls had been sewn into a pattern that she couldn’t make out. The spear was wrapped in the rotting cloth and buried deep like the Dark Knights buried their fallen.

Who buried it?

Saarh?

Brab?

Their offspring?

Had the ancient shaman no longer needed the weapon? Had she discarded it just as Chislev had thrown it away? Did Saarh finally learn that the gods were worthless and, thus, Chislev’s spear useless too?

Mudwort’s fingers happily twirled in the dirt and basked in the eldritch aura that seeped out of the spear.

“Mudwort’s spear.”

She knew precisely where it was, and she extricated her hands from the earth and hurried toward its hiding place.

Thya, who’d been quietly watching from behind a thick willow, scrambled to keep pace.

DEAD SILENCE

Nine hundred knights: Bera hadn’t led so many into battle before.

She walked at the front of the column, her most seasoned scout, Tavor, at her side, Zocci a few paces behind, Isaam next. The rest followed four or five across, the trees too close for them to march in a regular formation. She kept the pace measured because of the sorcerer; she needed his cooperation, and it wouldn’t do to either have him fall behind and get lost or to make him so exhausted that he couldn’t cast a single spell.

Her knights would be more than enough to slaughter any number of goblins. But she might need Isaam’s magic against Grallik. And she would need his spells to record, for posterity and her superiors, the obliteration of the goblins and the-

“Traitor,” she hissed, thinking of Grallik. Her scout glanced at her, but she gestured for him to face forward.

“Landmarks,” she said needlessly. “Keep looking for them, Tavor. Find us something that corresponds to the map.”

She hated traitors and couldn’t stop thinking of Grallik.

The former Gray Robe was everything she despised in one half-elf package. He would die, like the goblins he’d fled the mining camp with, but he wouldn’t die easily. Maybe she’d use the traitor Horace to keep Grallik alive with healing spells so she could prolong the half-elf’s agony. That thought brought a slight smile to her lips. Maybe she’d kill the pathetic Horace first in full view of Grallik. And maybe she’d have the wizard burned alive-according to her reports, fire was his specialty.

How could he have turned his back on the Dark Knights?

The Order was everything to Bera-her heart, the code she lived by, and the family she’d adopted since joining the ranks. The knighthood had been good to her, giving her a purpose in life, and she’d earned her status; not a single award or medal had been a gift. Early in her career, she’d entertained the notion of rising to head the entire knighthood, or at the least leading the knights that reported to Neraka. That was a goal she’d let slip away through the years, considering it too lofty and unrealistic; she’d not had the opportunities to distinguish herself in that way, and up until that moment her actual rank had been modest.

But her mission might catch the right people’s attention. Her superiors were livid over the goblins’ escape. They were rats, simple slave labor, but they had slapped the knighthood in its collective face by killing their overseers at the mining camp and by going unpunished and roaming free. For the honor of the Order, they had to be caught and made an example of.

And if-when-she was successful, the Order might reward her with a high advancement in rank. At her age she might not get such an opportunity again to achieve and impress.

“Tavor?”

The scout shook his head. “No landmarks yet, Commander. But from the map, I still believe we are headed in the correct direction. This forest is so vast, though, it is hard to read.”

“Read it regardless,” she said. “And read it quickly.”

“We’re getting close, I can tell.” Tavor pointed to a cluster of high bushes surrounding a grove of trees. “Purple robe locust is on this map,” he said, “and weeping bottlebrush.”

The former grew fifty feet tall or more and was covered with spectacular clusters of purple and pink flowers that hung like grapes. The latter was the height of a man and profusely dotted with scarlet flowers on which a swarm of hummingbirds feasted.

Bera nodded approvingly. “I am surprised you know so much about trees. That’s not in your record, Tavor.”

“Rare plants, I’m interested in. And I’ve noticed several since we’ve been in this forest. The purple robe were atypical trees when the map was penned more than three decades ago. Not many of them then, so rarer still perhaps now. And see the dry bed?”

Bera remembered that the bed had been marked on the map, with a notation that a thin, straight river had dried up overnight. The ground cover stopped at the edge, the bottom of the river bed looked like fish scales baked in the sun. Even after thirty years, nothing had dared to grow or flow there.

“Does the map say what happened to the river?”

“A battle between two Qualinesti sorcerers, and the river lost.” The scout shrugged and replaced the map among his belongings. “We’re very close, Commander. I’ll wager that if the goblins are on the bluff, they’ll hear us coming soon.”

“We do make a considerable racket, don’t we?” Bera motioned to Isaam then glanced up as a hawk shot from a tree with a piercing cry, darting to the north and following a small flock of black birds. “Maybe we shouldn’t make so much noise, eh? We should not spook our quarry. It would be a shame if they scattered and we didn’t get them all. Every last little stinking one.”

The sorcerer rubbed at the bridge of his nose and let out a low breath. He leaned his weight on his right foot then his left; he’d told Bera the previous night how much his ankles were aching.

“You can make us quiet, old friend?”

“Commander, I can make us as quiet as death,” Isaam said. The sorcerer’s eyes rolled back until they looked like solid white stones.

Bera had seen her old friend perform that trick before, though not involving hundreds of soldiers. She could tell that her scout, and even Zocci, seemed unnerved by Isaam’s eerie mien.

The sorcerer’s mouth twitched, and his fingers spread, looking like knobby bird’s feet. His shoulders shook once; the sleeves that had been rolled up came loose and fell down over his skeletal-thin arms.

“No noise from metal,” Isaam whispered. His voice sounded hollow. “No words from flesh. No sounds from life.” Wispy tendrils extended from his fingertips, bearing the appearance of smoke but being too dark and heavy for it. The tendrils thickened and swirled around the sorcerer then floated to the ground, the effect of the enchantment leaving his skin looking ashen. He spoke more, but Bera couldn’t hear him. He threw his head back and appeared to shout; again, nothing could be heard.

Next, the vapors swirled around Bera’s feet. She sucked in a breath, not wanting to inhale the dark magic as it rose and spun around her. The tendrils played along her face as if a lover caressed her then disappeared in the locks of her hair, only to reappear behind her, traveling down her back and wafting over to Zocci.

The process took quite some time, the black fog covering one Dark Knight after the other, sometimes encompassing three or four at one time. Isaam glided along with the spell, directing it and making sure no knight was left out, not even the prisoner Horace. The ashen complexion marked each man and woman who was touched by the strange magic.

Bera thought they looked like the newly dead, their color having just fled but their flesh looking still pliant and warm. The magic was almost too effective. She couldn’t hear herself breathe, nor could she hear the swish of Isaam’s robe as he strode toward her, still only the whites of his eyes showing. When he took his place in the line behind Zocci, he blinked and his eyes turned normal.

Bera thunked her fingers against her breastplate-soundless. She tried to hear any of her men-nothing. She saw the branches moving from the breeze she felt wafting across her face, but there wasn’t even the faintest accompanying sound. There were plenty of birds in the trees-crows with their beaks opening and closing, jays preening, sparrows flitting from one branch to the next. A small red-tailed hawk worked at a nest in a lofty spot. It was strange not being able to hear any of the birds’ activity.

She raised her arm and motioned the knights forward. Bera had practically memorized the most recent map her scout used, which he claimed was three decades old. They had newer maps of sections along the coast and to the north, but that was not where their quarry was hiding.

Why the Qualinesti Forest? she asked herself for the hundredth time. Why did the goblins come there when they would have been safer, and their journey shorter, had they joined up with the established goblin territory in Northern Ergoth? She intended to keep one alive just long enough to ask that question and sate her curiosity.

It was unnatural, walking in silence. She missed the clink-clank of armor, the labored breathing of Isaam, the snapping branches, and the birdsong. With so many birds, she should hear them. Could Isaam hear, although the rest of them couldn’t?

For nearly an hour, they followed a path her scout had found. Tavor stopped occasionally, bending and nudging the dirt, turning over fallen leaves, and inspecting fern fronds and low bushes. She wanted to ask him what he was looking for and decided she’d never know. When battle came she’d forget all of that, the boring part of the hunt.

Tavor motioned for everyone to stay still, and he slipped ahead. It looked as if he were taking care how he walked-force of habit, as he wasn’t thinking about the silence spell. When he disappeared from view, Zocci brushed his hand against Bera’s neck. She jumped but quickly regained her composure, not turning around and keeping her eyes focused on where Tavor had gone.

Minutes passed, but Tavor did not return. Bera tapped her foot impatiently and flexed her fingers, cracking them without hearing the crack.

She felt another touch, on the back of her hand, the sensation softer: Isaam. He edged ahead of her and peered into the foliage, shrugging and shaking his head. Beads of sweat were thick on his brow and dripped off his nose. It was a warm day, but Bera suspected that maintaining the silent enchantment was what really put him under strain. He gestured at her, and she cocked her head, misunderstanding. He rolled his eyes in frustration, picked up a twig and snapped it: no sound.

Soon, he mouthed.

She understood. His spell was wearing thin. Very soon they would be clinking and clanking and rustling against the trees and bushes.

She raised her arm and motioned the men forward. Minutes later she reached the edge of a tree line and emerged onto a rise where the trees ahead had been considerably thinned. Stumps dotted a landscape that dropped gently away then rose to a bluff. She could hear the branches gently clicking, and she thought she could hear the rush of water-the river on the map.

“They’re gone,” Zocci said, gesturing. “The goblins are all gone.”

“But they were here,” Bera said.

The remains of small cooking fires were scattered across the ground, and here and there burned and broken logs were strewn. There were piles of leaves and twigs and ashes-plenty of evidence that a vast number had inhabited the place.

“Not a soul,” Isaam said.

Bera took a step forward. She didn’t like the look or the smell of the place. Death was in the air. The veteran of many battles, she recognized the sour-sweet of burned bodies. There was also a faint acrid scent she couldn’t identify at first.

“Chlorine.” Bera cupped her hand over her eyes. “Faint but evident. Why chlorine?” The sun was setting, yet it shone through gaps in the maples as an orange glare that made her squint.

“And death,” Isaam whispered. “But not so faint.”

“Aye, plenty of death. I noticed that.” Bera continued to study the ground. Though she wasn’t a tracker, she could tell it had been disturbed by a great many goblin feet swarming and marching. “And there is no sign of Tavor. Where is my scout?”

“Perhaps he went over the bluff, searching ahead.” That was said by Zocci. His expression was wary, troubled. “I’ll find him.” He moved ahead, long, measured strides that took him past a pile of charred wood. The wind scattered some of the ashes.

“They knew we were coming,” Isaam said. “Somehow they knew, and they fled.”

Bera sneered and motioned the men forward, making a circle with her hand to signal the soldiers to spread out and search. She remained back with Isaam. “Find out where they went, old friend. We’ll track them somehow with your magic. Your magic will serve us far better than our scouts. Focus on Grallik, find a way to poke a window in their blocking spell and … find them fast. We’ll follow them to the Abyss if we have to. I’ll not let this go. In fact …” Bera looked up into the trees, suddenly noticing something else that was weird.

“Birds,” she pronounced. “There are none here. Everywhere else in the forest but not here.” She cut Isaam a worried glance then said, “Zoccinder, bring everyone back right-”

One man screamed then another.

A DARK KNIGHT’S WORST NIGHTMARE

A few hundred knights had walked ahead of Bera so she couldn’t see what was happening to those in the front ranks. She started to dash forward, but Isaam’s arm shot out and caught her. Despite his spindly appearance, the sorcerer was surprisingly strong.

“Commander.” It was the only word Isaam needed to say.

Bera’s training and experience kicked in. “Retreat!” she shouted, an order she loathed to give that was repeated through the ranks of the men who’d hastened before her. Retreat, she thought, until she could assess the situation. Get them out of whatever trap she’d let them march straight into.

She guessed roughly a third of her knights had headed toward the bluff-maybe three hundred fighters. The rest stretched out in uneven ranks behind her and reversed their course, spreading out to make space for their retreating brethren.

She wanted to be up at the front, to see what nasty little trap the goblins had set. More shouts and another scream cut through the air.

Bera wanted to call for Zocci. She prayed it was not him. No, it couldn’t be. Zocci would not scream like a baby.

The men started to fall back, but only the ones closest to her made it inside the tree line. Incredibly, the rest were being sucked down by the earth, attacked by the trees, and pummeled by goblins that had appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

“By all the dark gods,” Bera breathed. “A fool, me.” How could she have underestimated the goblins? Rats, she’d called them. But they were instead a Dark Knight’s worst nightmare. They were clever rats, and there were a lot of them everywhere.

The ground had looked solid enough when the knights had started across it. But many suddenly dropped into bowl-like depressions that had been camouflaged by dirt and thatch strewn over them. Before the knights who hadn’t fallen could help their comrades, the goblins had descended. Some spilled out of the earth bowls; others dropped from the trees. More came up over the bluff like a swarm of ants headed for something sweet.

Bera drew her sword. “Regroup!” She repeated the order, not needing to shout with Isaam deploying a simple spell to magnify her voice. “Retreat! On my line! Now!”

Her men tried to obey while at the same time fighting the goblins that clearly outnumbered and beleaguered them. Bera jumped forward, throwing her free arm out and pulling a young knight back. She tugged at another as she drove the pommel of her sword down on the top of the head of a goblin that had appeared right in front of her. She barely heard the crunch of his skull as he dropped, or perhaps she’d just imagined the sound.

“Doleman, Carthor, get your men and follow me! Eyes on the ground!” Bera crept forward. “Anders, bring up the archers.”

The racket grew, goblins yelling out to each other in their ugly, guttural language, words that she couldn’t understand, her knights shouting, some of her knights hollering in pain. Goblins screamed too. She watched an Ergothian named Garold gut two goblins with one heavy swing. Swords clashed against knives, and suddenly added to that was the constant thwup of arrows.

When had the goblins become proficient with bows? She’d thought their only weapons were primitive ones, along with whatever they’d stolen from the dead knights in Steel Town. She edged farther past the tree line, gesturing wildly for more knights to retreat.

Her bowmen came into play, sending a volley into a wave of goblins descending from the east.

“Commander!” Her lieutenants Doleman and Carthor carefully brought two dozen men along with them.

“We get everyone back!” she shouted to Doleman. “Fighting retreat! We’re the rear guard!”

The field before her was chaos, not the slay fest Bera had imagined on the trail. She’d more than underestimated the rats, and she was paying for it with the lives of some of her men. She had to get them out of there, regroup, and organize an attack.

Her chest felt impossibly tight. Calling a retreat, from goblins! Men lost to goblins! She had to turn the situation around and fast. She had to get her troops back to a safer spot, plan a different advance, make the sorcerer punch a hole in their “windowless house,” and get a good look at what she was up against.

She had to get Isaam to find Grallik.

“Isaam!” A glance over her shoulder showed that the sorcerer was caught up in casting some spell. There was no use interrupting him; she sprang forward to engage a pair of goblins trying to cut off the escape of one of her half-elf knights.

Bera waded forward, slashing to keep a goblin back, and with her free hand, reached out to help a knight who’d fallen in one of the shallow pits. “Brosha! Give me your hand!” He waved her off and pointed to his leg, twisted unnaturally, blood seeping out from a gap between the greave and knee piece.

“Doleman! Bring two men!” It would take at least two to carry Brosha out. She waited until Doleman headed her way. Slashing again at a goblin darting near and drawing a thick line of blood across his belly, she moved toward the next pit and extended her hand as another knight came in behind her and finished off the injured goblin.

Ahead, she watched one of her men snatched up by the branch of a red maple. A heartbeat later, the tree hurled him over the edge of the bluff. The branch reached for another but was thwarted by a lieutenant who cut the offending branch off with one swing.

Bera knew what was happening with the trees and branches-a druid was at work somewhere, animating the oaks as though they were an army of creatures fighting on the side of the goblins. She hadn’t realized goblins possessed such magic …

“Get behind Isaam!” That was shouted by Carthor, who had fought his way past Bera and busy tugging another one of her men out of a pit. “Everyone, get behind Isaam now!”

Bera worked her way up to Carthor, slicing the arm off one skinny brown goblin, and lopping the head off another. Individually, the goblins presented scant challenge. But there were so many of them … the ground was covered with their odorous, ugly forms. There were hobgoblins too, and all of the enemy wielded one sort of weapon or another-knives, spears, clubs. Again a hail of arrows rained down from the goblins, most of them bouncing off the Dark Knights’ armor, but some finding their way into gaps between gorgets and shoulder pieces. A few arrows drove through the steel cuisse sections that covered knights’ thighs and even punched into their breast plates.

Another return volley was launched by her knights, their arrows proving more effective against the goblins, only a few of whom wore anything resembling armor.

Though more goblins than knights were dying, Bera raged that any of her men had been killed. It was not supposed to have happened that way. It was her fault for underestimating the goblins, not considering them to be worthy opponents.

“Regroup!” she bellowed. She wrapped both hands around the pommel of her sword and drove the blade down on a barrel-chested, red-skinned goblin that rushed frenetically at her. His spear broke against the overlapping plates on her hips, and she split his head partway in two. “Behind Isaam. Regroup!”

A glance back toward the tree line showed that more of her men had fought their way there. Not one goblin had pursued them. Isaam’s spell made a shield wall, she realized, invisible and effective, keeping the goblins to their section of the scabrous land. She looked to the bluff, where about a hundred knights remained. They maneuvered around the pits, alternately fighting goblins and hobgoblins and tree branches that continued to whip down and lash at them. Several knights were being held in wooden grips a dozen or more feet off the ground.

She spotted Zocci at the edge of the bluff, his axe scarlet from the goblins he’d slain. There was a mound of dead goblins around him, and Bera’s heart leaped to see that he was still unscathed. The edge of his blade glowed faintly blue, and she remembered Isaam had said it reeked of magic. He swept it in a wide arc, cutting one goblin in half at the waist and lodging it halfway into the chest of another. Zocci brought his leg up to push the goblin off his weapon so he could continue the fight.

Bera never felt more alive than when she was fighting such a battle. The ache in her arms from her repeated swings was welcome. The warm flush in her face invigorated her. They were an enemy she hated, so the slaying was all the more rewarding. She envied Zocci for having a weapon that was impossibly sharp.

She resisted the urge to fight her way to him and join in fighting by his side, sharing the bloodbath he was creating.

But she was in charge, so her goal was to get her men to safety so she could plan a fresh assault. “Retreat! Regroup!” She would not call for a surrender. She’d never surrender to the likes of those creatures. “Slay them all,” her superior had told her. “Every last one.”

First she had to pull her forces back by those rare trees Tavor had spotted. Then the fight would be on her terms-not theirs. Tavor? No doubt the goblins had gotten him first.

Zocci faced two hobgoblins. One was nearly as tall as he and ugly from all the scars that crisscrossed its face and arms. The other looked old with stooped shoulders. The older one wielded a thick spear, prodding methodically with it, then jabbing forward, as if he’d had some training with the weapon.

Where? Bera wondered. Where could goblins possibly get weapons training? But many clearly had, as they nimbly darted in and swept their knives in fluid arcs, aiming at the joints in the knights’ leg plates and now and then meeting with success. The knights had the longer reach and better weapons, so they could often kill a goblin before it was able to slip in close enough. But some managed to duck beneath Dark Knights’ blades.

“So damn many rats,” she cursed as she cut down one after another. “Too damn many.” And where was Grallik? She’d only observed goblins and hobgoblins. “Where is the traitor?”

She fought with renewed urgency. “Get behind me. Get back to Isaam.” She gestured to a trio fighting a throng of brown-skinned goblins with shrunken heads dangling from their belts. What did that mean, shrunken heads? “Damnable creatures. Regroup!”

The trees continued to flail at her men. Goblins were perched above the animated limbs and kept firing with their primitive bows. Her bowmen were targeting them, and as she watched, a broad-shouldered goblin plummeted from its branch.

“Where is Grallik?” And which goblin or hobgoblin could be the druid who forced the trees to take sides in the melee? There were too many goblins for Bera to pick out which one might be responsible for the trees. And there were too many-“Grallik!”

She didn’t spy the wizard, but she did see a thin column of flame shoot down next to a clump of birches. A handful of her knights had backed themselves into that place, and the flames caught them … but miraculously did not touch the goblins they were fighting. The men burned inside their armor, their screams barely audible above the clash of weapons and all the shouting. Grallik had to be responsible for such fire.

“Grallik!” Bera spun one way then the other, swinging wildly to keep the goblins back as she searched for the traitor. Colorful shards cut through the air, melting into the breast plate of one of her best female knights. The woman clutched at her chest and fell backward. A hobgoblin swooped in and picked up her sword as more colorful light shards flew past.

“The traitor is here!” Bera shouted. “Grallik is casting these spells! Zocci! Regroup!”

Bera needed him to fight his way back to safety too. Zocci was too isolated at the edge of the bluff, surrounded by goblins and hobgoblins with not another knight for more than a dozen yards. She could see a wide smile on his face. Like her, he was at his best, his happiest, when he was in a fight with a foe.

“Aye, Bera!” He’d heard her. “I’ll join you in a moment.” He said something else, but she couldn’t hear. Or perhaps he’d only mouthed it: “My love,” she thought it was. “I’ll join you in a moment, my love.”

She thrust her sword into the chest of an overly thin hobgoblin. Pulling her blade out, she heard a nearby hobgoblin cry out, “Rustymane! Rusty!” then begin to sob.

“Sentimental rats,” she snarled. “Zocci! Regroup!”

Zocci only laughed. He was facing a big hobgoblin, roughly Zocci’s height, who warily circled Zocci and jabbed forward with a long knife in one hand then made a chopping motion with an axe in the other.

“Zocci, get out of there!” Panic seized Bera’s heart, and her chest felt tight. The big hobgoblin looked pretty skilled.

Then a number of goblins swarmed around Zocci’s legs. He kicked at them. Their puny knives couldn’t penetrate his heavy, blued armor. He laughed again, louder. She imagined he’d be angry later that they’d scratched and dented it, though. She’d have to help him work out the imperfections.

“Zocci!” She started toward him. “I’ll bring you back myself if I have to!”

He kicked a yellow-skinned goblin in the face, planted his foot on the belly of another, then swept wide with his other leg, knocking a red-skinned goblin off the bluff.

The tall hobgoblin, who had been crouching beneath Zocci’s swing, sprang up and rammed his long knife into a seam where the knight’s cuirass breast plate met a mailed skirt.

The blow had to have glanced off, Bera thought. Her eyes widened as she saw the hobgoblin try to pull the knife free and instead pulled his blood-soaked hand back. The hobgoblin swung with the axe, keeping close to Zocci and turning, turning, forcing the Dark Knight toward the very edge of the bluff.

“No.” Bera rushed toward them, slipping on blood-drenched ground and sliding into a pit. There were goblins and one of her knights dead at the bottom, and she scrambled over them to get out.

The hobgoblin was hacking into Zocci as if he were so much firewood. The blued plate was dented, a rent in the center of the knight’s chest piece. Blood poured out everywhere, and Zocci fell to his knees. The hobgoblin pulled Zocci’s axe out of his hands, spun the weapon, and slammed it into Zocci, knocking him down.

“No!” Carthor and Doleman grabbed her shoulders, pulling her back. “Zocci!”

“Commander, we have to get out of here.” She couldn’t tell which of them had said it. “Commander, that was your order.”

Zocci lay on his stomach, unmoving. The big hobgoblin raised the great axe and brought it down on Zocci’s neck then bent over and grabbed his victim’s head, holding it high in the air. A moment more, and the hobgoblin hurled the head over the side of the bluff. Two hands on the axe handle, the hobgoblin looked across the battlefield and locked eyes with Bera.

“Your orders, Commander,” Doleman said. “Regroup.”

She whirled and headed toward Isaam, Doleman, and Carthor and a few other knights straggling behind. They dodged flailing tree limbs and batted away arrows. Carthor fell just short of safety, colorful magical darts from Grallik piercing his armor and killing him instantly. Bera kept moving away, away.

NOT MUCH OF A LOOK

Rustymane had turned back late in the morning of the third day. He told Qel he was sorry, but he didn’t think it was right to leave Direfang, what with all the misfortune that had befallen the city. Direfang needed him. He said he should have never agreed to escort her to the ocean.

“S’dard,” Rustymane said, thumping his thumb against his chest. “S’dard to go from the city. S’dard more to be here in the woods. Time to go home.”

What city? Qel thought. What home? Nearly everything is destroyed.

He’d patted her on the shoulder, wished her good fortune, and left her in the hobgoblin Gralin’s care.

That was two days earlier, maybe three, and Qel hadn’t protested. As she walked, she wondered if she should have tried to talk him out of it. The forest was a little more intimidating with only one hobgoblin for an escort-and he a chatty one who seemed perfectly happy to talk to himself when she wasn’t in the mood answer his myriad questions. She had no idea where exactly they were in the massive woods, as she lacked her friend Orvago’s nature skills.

Perhaps they were lost; she certainly felt lost, utterly, hopelessly wandering from one berry bush to the next, eating and walking and getting sore feet while drawing no closer to the shore.

Could Gralin truly lead her to the coast? Or was he as clueless as he appeared?

“S’dard, me, for coming here, Gralin. And more the s’dard for wandering with you for days and days. We’re lost.”

“Qel said that yesterday.”

“And the day before, I believe.”

He gave a clipped laugh. “A pretty voice, Qel has. But Qel does not use it often enough. Even if it is to complain, Qel does not talk very much. I prefer her talking to silence.”

“When I do talk, it is more often than not to call myself a fool.”

The laugh was louder at that. “Qel worries too much and talks too little. It will not be so hard to find the shore. Just takes time. Don’t need Rustymane for finding big water.” The hobgoblin paused and tugged at a hair growing crookedly on his chin. “Rustymane’s a better tracker, though. Rustymane hunts better, knows how to spot wolf prints and boar signs. Finds better food. Wouldn’t mind that. Right now only need to find the ocean, and that won’t be hard. Promise. Said that yesterday too.”

Did the hobgoblin sense her nervousness? Was he trying to reassure her?

“Qel can talk some more now, even if it is to complain.”

She lapsed back into her usual grouchy silence.

Gralin was on the short side for his species. He stood only five and a half feet tall. His skin was the color of dead oak leaves, and its smoothness suggested to her he was quite young in years. He was the least marred of the hobgoblins she’d known, having only one scar of any significant size: a jagged line that looked like a lightning bolt stretching down his forearm to his wrist. He’d told her he got that a year before, wrestling a ferocious wild pig in the Plains of Dust.

“Fault is here,” he’d said, smacking the palm of his hand against his forehead. “Lazy, careless. S’dard to not pay attention and watch out for pig tusks.” He’d laughed too, long and loud and gave her a goofy grin. She didn’t want to admit it, but over the days she’d found herself enjoying his company.

Gralin had not been a slave in the Dark Knights’ mines, so he’d never been whipped or beaten, and thus he possessed the optimism of one who’d never been under another’s thumb. He was with one of the groups of hobgoblins and goblins who had answered Mudwort’s call through the earth and had traveled west across the Plains of Dust and over the dwarf mountains.

“I can’t hear the ocean, Gralin. I thought we’d be able to hear it by now,” Qel finally piped up.

“Good, Qel talks again. Otherwise just birds to listen to,” he said. “Hear lots of birds. Sounds good, though, all the birds. Like to listen to them. Maybe Qel should have decided to go home earlier-before Direfang led the goblins to the bluff to build the city. Decided earlier, then ocean wouldn’t have been so far away. You should listen to birds too, Qel. Very peaceful.”

“The ocean will sound much better to me than birdsong.”

“Ocean not far away. Then Qel can find a ship and go home to the island.”

“Schallsea Island,” she said wistfully. “It will be good to go home.”

He let out a deep breath and shook out his hands, clenching and unclenching his fingers. “Home is good, yes. Soon all the goblins will have a good home here. It will be bigger than the nation in Northern Ergoth. The Qualinesti Forest will be known as the homeland of goblinkind.” He paused and pawed at a web he’d walked through. “Direfang’s city will be a very good home, Qel. Never been to Schallsea, but maybe see it someday. Graytoes and some of the others talked about the island. Said the buildings were pretty and the grass was too short to get tangled in. Said everything smelled like the sea and like flowers.”

She smiled. “I’d never much paid attention to the way it smelled. I guess you have to leave home to realize you don’t want to or need to.”

He raised a hairy eyebrow.

“Sometimes I don’t explain myself very well.”

He cocked his head.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is that maybe you have to travel somewhere else to realize just how good your own home is.” She reached a hand up and plucked at some webbing he’d missed across his forehead. “I was raised on Schallsea Island, Gralin, never knew anyplace else. And I’d never thought of giving the world a look until Direfang’s ships came into port. Oh, ships were always coming into port, but this was different. So many goblins, and so full of purpose and hope. My curiosity won out, so I came here with them … to give the world a look.”

“Qel didn’t get a long look.”

She shook her head ruefully. “No, I guess I didn’t.”

“Probably no dragons or bloodragers on Schallsea. One good thing about Qel’s island, no beasts there. Life is easier, probably. But easy isn’t always the best way.” He sighed, apparently waiting for her to say something. After a few moments of silence, he continued. “Some think Qel was sent to spy on the city and to report back. Was sent to watch everyone. Some of the others talk about that. Not me. But I heard talk.”

“No. We’ve discussed this before. Yesterday.”

“And the day before that and before that,” he added.

“I wasn’t a spy.” But Qel would have plenty to tell the healers on the island, namely that the goblins and hobgoblins were not stupid. And they were not evil, though she couldn’t necessarily call them all good souls. They spoke a little primitively, but that was just their language. She figured Gralin was as smart as any young human; the hobgoblin simply looked at the world through different eyes.

Kind eyes, she thought after a moment. They’d not seen some of the horrors Direfang and Mudwort and Graytoes had witnessed. Qel mentally went over some of the events and incidents she would report to the healers. She intended to tell them about the dwarf baby too, not that anyone on Schallsea Island could do anything about it. Umay festered at the back of her mind.

“Umay,” she said.

“It means hope.” Gralin stood on his toes and tugged at a bulbous, yellow-skinned fruit. It had knobs on it, looking like a puffer fish. He took a bite and found it acceptable then stretched a hand up and tugged one free for Qel. “Hope, hopeful, a promise for the future. That is what the name stands for. Graytoes wants the baby to have a good, hopeful, important life.”

She stopped herself from arguing about the child. She’d exhausted herself on several of the other goblins and hobgoblins-and Orvago-trying to tell them they ought to find a family in the mountains, a dwarf family, to take the baby. Returning the child to her real mother was probably impossible, she knew. Arguing the subject with Gralin would be equally pointless. Maybe she should have taken Umay with her, so the healers on Schallsea could find the baby a proper mother of its own race.

“Well?” He’d asked her something and she’d missed it.

“Sorry. What?”

“Qel? What does Qel mean?”

“I don’t know. It probably doesn’t mean anything.” He stopped in his tracks and faced her. “No. Names mean something. It must mean something.”

“The healers on the island named me Qel.”

“For a reason.”

“I never asked.” She paused. “But I will. When I get home, I will ask.”

“Gralin means little and lively,” he said, resuming the trek and his chatter. “Like Qel, never knew parents, just the clan. Neacha’s father picked the name Gralin. Sounds good, eh? Means something-little, lively.” He added a bounce to his step to prove his point and tried to catch a dragonfly buzzing past.

They waded through a thin creek and skirted a pond dotted with lily pads. Gralin paused a moment to watch a fist-sized bullfrog’s throat balloon and sound a deep croak. When the frog plopped into the water, the hobgoblin continued west.

“This forest is a good, big place, Qel. The city will be a good home. Why do you want to go back to Schallsea Island? Why go back when there is still so much … world … to see?”

“Homesick.” She spoke the word in the common tongue. There was no goblin word that meant the same thing as far as she could tell. “I miss Schallsea Island more than I thought I ever could. I miss it so much, there’s an ache inside my heart.”

“But does Schallsea miss Qel?”

“I-”

“Does Schallsea need Qel? Plenty of healers there, eh? This nation needs Qel. A good healer, Qel is.”

“I-”

“Better find out what the name Qel means.” He swiped at another dragonfly and skipped over a fallen log. She noticed he wasn’t really trying to catch the insect.

“I’m homesick, Gralin,” she repeated.

He shrugged and pressed ahead of her, using his big hands to part the bushes and tall fronds, hopping here and there to act out the meaning of his name. She had to hurry to catch up. He chattered about the birds and the flowers and the stink of something that had died nearby. He asked her more questions, but she didn’t answer, staying focused on walking quickly and not tripping over roots and rotting branches.

“Too quiet,” Gralin said after an hour or so had passed.

Qel shivered and looked around. There were plenty of birds in the branches, and she spotted a gray squirrel scampering up the trunk of a half-dead maple. The bird sounds were soft, but she’d not noticed a change to alert her to a predator.

“Without Rustymane, it’s too quiet on this walk,” he continued. “Qel stopped talking. Without Qel talking, it is too quiet round here. Rustymane does not talk much. But Rustymane snorts a lot. Sounds likes snores, eh? Maybe Qel should talk more about Schallsea so it is not so quiet. Maybe Qel should talk about how much Schallsea needs one more healer-needs a healer more than Direfang’s entire city does.”

He waited for her to say something, and when she didn’t, he wiped the back of his hand on his mouth and walked even faster.

“Maybe we should go back,” she said suddenly. “The ocean is not much farther.” He stopped and sniffed the air. “Smelling it now. Salt. Not far now at all.”

“I’ve been thinking, Gralin.”

“Took a long time to think, eh? Took days to think.”

“I’ve been thinking about something you said.”

“About being needed?”

“Yes, about Schallsea Island not needing one more healer.” She nodded. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should give it another try, staying here. Do you think you could find the way back to the … city? I’m wholly lost. Completely. Utterly. Hopelessly. We’ve been gone, what … four days? Five?”

He turned and counted on his fingers. “Rustymane left three days ago. Been gone five. No, six-that’s why the ocean is so close.” He set his knuckles against his hips and regarded her for a moment. “Direfang’s city will not be hard to find. Turn around, go back the way we came. We can do that.”

“You’d have to go back anyway, to Direfang’s city,” she said. “After leaving me at the beach, you’d have to turn around and-”

“Walk six more days. Don’t mind walking.”

“So we should start back now.”

“Before Qel changes her mind again.”

He bobbed his way forward, angling toward the southeast. “It is a good place, this forest. And it is good that it is not too quiet anymore. It is even better that Direfang’s city has not lost a good healer.”

Qel sucked in her lower lip and followed him. I am homesick, she mouthed. “I miss Schallsea.”

“It will still be there,” he told her. “When Qel is older and is not needed so much here.” Then he took two more steps and pitched forward, arrows protruding from his neck and back.

Qel screamed and dropped to her knees, crawling forward and casting her head this way and that, trying to see who was responsible.

Elves? They’d heard from the Skinweavers that some elves had been returning to the Qualinesti Forest.

Who? Where? But she was too low to see very well, the ground cover so thick, it looked like walls of green closing her in.

“Gralin?” she whispered.

There was no answer.

She heard the soft rustle of leaves, a little too loud for it to be the breeze, followed by clear words: “Did you kill it?”

She crawled to Gralin, her tunic snagging on a low branch and holding her. She tugged at the fabric and was instantly free. A healing enchantment rushed through her mind as she closed the distance and touched her fingers to the hobgoblin’s back. Her other hand grasped one of the arrow hafts and pulled.

Be alive, she thought.

Her spell mended the hole left from the extracted arrow as she reached for another shaft, her fingers slick with his blood.

Please be alive.

“Aye, I think I killed it, but there may be more. Best keep a wary eye out.”

Qel worked quickly, but she couldn’t pull the arrow out. It was in too deep, lodged against something hard. She might do more harm than good. She sent waves of cold into Gralin’s form, hoping to stop any internal bleeding. Then her fingers fluttered toward the arrows protruding from his neck.

Please, please, Gralin, be …

“It’s a girl. Put your bows down.”

Dead.

Gralin was beyond her help.

Qel broke the arrow off on Gralin’s back, and yanked the two out of his neck. She turned the hobgoblin over just as six Dark Knights tromped through the brush and surrounded her. She kept from crying over a hobgoblin she hadn’t known very well but had come to like in the past several days. She would show no weakness to the men.

Why did you have to kill him? She wanted to know that, above all.

“Girl, are you all right?” Concern was thick in the knight’s voice.

Qel stood, noticing she had a considerable blood smear on her tunic. “It’s not mine, this blood.”

“Your captor. Telvir and Walen dropped him.”

She wanted to scream at them for killing the young hobgoblin, whose only weapon was a knife that was still stuck in its sheath. But she kept silent and regarded them blankly.

They were all sweating, though the day was not overly warm. It was probably from traveling through the overgrown terrain for hours and hours, maybe traveling for days, she thought. She noted that each man had stubble on his face and grass and dirt smudges along the bottoms of their tabards.

“Do you know where he was taking you, girl?”

Qel knew she looked younger than she really was, and so she didn’t intend to set them right on that point either. She shook her head and looked at her bloody hands. She’d gotten splinters from the arrows.

“Good thing we spotted you and the hob.” That came from the knight who leaned over the hobgoblin and prodded Gralin’s body with his boot tip. He straightened and gave her a curt nod. “We’re in these woods hunting these things.”

“Hobgoblins?” She knew Direfang’s people were worried about the knights.

“Hobs and gobs,” he cut back. “Were you held captive in a goblin camp?”

She shook her head. I was in their city, she thought.

“The hob was probably taking you there, then. They’ve got a camp somewhere around here. Isaam says so.” The knight spun one way then the next. “Where was he taking you?”

She pointed north. Would the gods be angry at all my lies?

“Are you from a village here in the forest? Somewhere near?”

Again, she shook her head. Her mind churned with what she ought to tell them. The truth, she settled on. “Schallsea Island. I was on a ship.”

“That was wrecked,” another knight finished. He was looking one way then the next, obviously in a hurry. He started tapping his foot. “Were there others with you? More prisoners?”

“Only one, from the island. I don’t know where he is now.” That was the truth. She was lost and had no idea where Orvago was.

“The coast isn’t far. You should get there well before sunset. Just keep walking west.” That was said by the knight still looming over the body. He gestured toward what Qel suspected was the west. “Keep walking in that direction, and you’ll reach the shore soon. Certainly before dark. Some ship coming by will see you. Another time and we would help you more. But-”

“We can’t afford to haul you through the woods with us is why. You’d never keep up, and we can’t slow down.” Another knight had spoken, one she hadn’t noticed before. There were seven of them.

“I’ll be all right,” she said. “I can find my way.”

The knight nudged the hobgoblin’s body with his boot again, gesturing north. “This way you say? We’ll try this direction for a while,” he said. “Telvir, you take point. We’ll see if we can find something.” He gave her another nod then directed the men back into the foliage.

She listened to their tromping for a while, and when she couldn’t hear them any longer, she knelt at Gralin’s side and pulled the knife from its sheath. She cut off two of his fingers and hurled them away.

“Leave nothing intact,” she remembered more than one goblin saying. It wasn’t her belief, but it had been Gralin’s. She finally allowed herself to shed tears over the fallen hobgoblin.

If she’d the time, she would have been more thorough and found a way to burn his body. And if she’d possessed any tracking skills, she would have retraced her steps and found her way back to Direfang’s city.

If she hadn’t left in the first place, Gralin would still be alive.

“Never should have left.” Qel squared her shoulders and headed-she hoped-to the west. She had no way to find the goblin city on her own, she decided; she had no choice but to try to find her way back to Schallsea Island.

“Gralin was right,” she said to herself, choking back tears. “I didn’t get much of a look.”

ABANDONED BY A GOD

Mudwort stood in the center of the ring of trees, slowly spinning and trying to absorb everything. She didn’t want to miss a detail of what could be the most important moment of her life-well, the most important moment since breaking free of the Dark Knight mining camp.

She had to remember all of it.

“T’rendru,” she said. A short goblin word, it carried a lot of meaning: remember, preserve, cherish, engrave, capture, but capture in a positive way. It was a word she hadn’t used in a long time.

The ash trees seemed much larger than when they’d appeared in her vision. Eighty feet tall, they had to be, and each at least half again that wide. Planted in a perfect circle, their limbs entwined like goblins holding hands in an important ceremony.

Their knobby roots extended into the clearing. She glanced at the back of her hand; the roots looked like veins standing out against the mossy ground. Nature hadn’t grown the trees on its own. Someone had helped. Maybe the ancient shaman. Maybe her consort. Maybe Chislev. Mudwort resisted the urge to dig immediately for the spear. She had to prolong the moment.

“T’rendru. Can’t miss anything,” she told herself. “Have to see it all and lock it away forever.”

The rustling of the ash leaves sounded musical, better than birdsong, and there were dozens upon dozens of birds chittering there. She thought she heard distinct words in their conversations, a whisper in the notes, as if the trees and birds were talking to her and she just couldn’t comprehend their language.

“What say?” she tried. Maybe if she spoke to them, they would answer in goblinspeak. “What say to Mudwort? What say, birds? What say, trees?”

After a little bit of concentration, she thought she picked out certain words: divine, danger, hope, and wonder-all in goblinspeak, uttered just for her benefit. T’rendru too. But it might have been her imagination. No, she distinctly heard “hope.” Umay-that was hope in goblinspeak. Mudwort was filled with it-hope. She hoped the spear would be amazing. She would not have urged Direfang to come to the forest otherwise. She would have championed a spot closer to Neraka or perhaps in Northern Ergoth.

“Mudwort’s spear.”

“Hope,” the trees seemed to repeat.

There were other trees, just as she had noted in her vision. But she could see them better, and there was a pattern to them too. Silver birches grew straight, their limbs spreading away to give them the shape of arrowheads. The birch trees around Direfang’s ruined city had curving, artful trunks that didn’t remind her of anything. The trees had a distinct pattern to them, and their leaves twisted in the wind, suggestive of the glittery silver jewelry she’d seen on some of the men and women in Steel Town.

“Treasure trees,” she dubbed them.

There were pin oaks and red oaks alternating with the silver birch, all set at precise intervals from one another, as if the planters had carefully measured the distances between the trunks. And there were cedars behind the oaks and birch, and blueberry bushes and holly growing around the base of everything. There was definitely a pattern to the planting.

“Beautiful, this.”

Suddenly she wanted Direfang and all the goblins to see the tremendous grove and share in its organized splendor. Yet at the same time, she wanted no one else but herself to see that spot. Mudwort, always a selfish sort, did not care to share the experience.

“Magical,” Mudwort said. “All of this magic.” She drew in a deep breath, glad that she’d not rushed to dig up the spear immediately; otherwise she would not have noticed all the amazing details. She needed to savor the moment. She pulled all the scents of the place deep inside and held them as long as she could, trying to identify them: clove, balsam, cinnamon, pecans, jasmine, oakmoss, sandalwood, and blueberries of course. The best of those scents nestled on her tongue-the fruit and nuts and clove. It had been a while since she’d eaten, and she thought she might raid the berry bushes after she’d retrieved her spear. Maybe she would kill a plump, pretty rabbit with the spear and roast it over a small fire in celebration.

There wasn’t even the hint of death in the air and no char from bodies or burned trees. Everything was vital and wonderful and intoxicating. Maybe that was why the trees whispered words such as divine and wonder. Only life and magic reigned there.

It was safe there too. Mudwort was certain she hadn’t heard the trees entirely correctly. There was no danger present. The ground was soft, and she saw the imprints of her feet where she’d paced. There was no trace of wolf tracks or anything big like those bloodragers. She spotted only bird tracks and something small that might have been a squirrel or a weasel.

Mudwort felt … good. She hadn’t felt so good in a long, long while. The little aches in her legs and arms, which came from traveling so far to get there, had disappeared. Her fatigue was gone; she was refreshed, as if she’d just woken from a deep sleep. Younger? Did she feel younger? Yes, she thought she did.

She would take a glance high in the trees to look at the birds; then she’d retrieve the spear. She noticed the crows first because they were larger and stood out starkly against the leaves. There were a few jays, a scattering of sparrows; there were always sparrows everywhere, even in Steel Town. There were rosy finches, a lone thrush, and little green and blue birds that she’d not noticed at first because they blended into the ash foliage. None of the birds were chittering quite as much as before. Some weren’t making any noise at all, just watching her.

Mudwort drew her features together and pursed her lips. Time to get the spear. Past time. She didn’t need to thrust her fingers into the ground and send her senses in search of it. She knew right where it was somehow; the thread that connected her to it was very strong, and it was pulling her.

“In the very center.” She carefully padded there, stepping as lightly as she could, the moss coming up between her toes and gently tickling her. “Orvago would have liked this place.” Maybe someday she would tell him about it-if she ever saw the gnoll again. She hadn’t yet decided whether she would return to the ruined city to show Direfang her prize artifact. A part of her wanted to show it to everyone, to hold it high and let them admire it and praise her. But a bigger part wanted to keep it hidden.

She gestured and the earth opened up, just as the tree had broken for Saarh centuries past, like a seam splitting on a garment that was too tight.

“Mudwort’s spear.” She squatted next to the opening and peered inside. Three feet down, the roots of an ash protectively covering the top of it, was a rotting piece of cloth that had been fine and fancy at one time. Thin, metallic threads shot through the rosy-colored fabric-silver, gold, and platinum. Tiny pearls had been sewn into a pattern she couldn’t make out. Maybe she would decipher it once it was free of its grave.

She waggled her fingers and watched the earth fall away from the bundle and the roots part so she could reach inside. Because she was so small, she had to crawl down inside to get the rosy fabric; her arms wouldn’t reach. She shivered. Despite the warmth of the day, it felt oddly cold in there. She touched the dirt and shivered again.

“Like winter,” she said, “without the snow.” There’d been no cold winters in Steel Town, but in the Before Time, Mudwort had known snow. She pulled in a deep breath, smelling the richness of the earth and wood and detecting something she couldn’t identify but found wholly pleasant. Tentatively touching the cloth, she quickly drew back. There was magic in the rotting fabric! Grallik would be able to tell her more about it, and if he were around, he might caution her to explore the magic first.

Danger, the leaves had said.

But Grallik was not around and would not be coming.

The more she thought about it, the more she believed she’d never return to the ruined city. Grallik and Orvago and countless numbers of goblins would try to take the treasure from her. She sucked in a deeper breath and stretched both hands forward, her palms registering the energy in the old material, then feeling a jolt when she closed her fingers around the spear cloaked inside it.

Her teeth chattered and an icy sensation shot up her arms. But as quick as it came, the sensation passed. She climbed out of the grave, carrying her prize, and watched as the earth sealed shut on her mental command, the moss growing together over the top and the ground looking as if it had never been disturbed. She laid her treasure down and carefully pulled back the cloth.

Mudwort felt dizzy-and weak, elated, frightened, confident, proud, insignificant-a maelstrom of emotions swirling through her all at the same time.

“Mudwort’s spear,” she said.

The spear was green, like she’d seen in her vision, at that time thinking it had been fashioned from a too-young tree whose bark had been stripped. But it wasn’t wood, it was stone. She tentatively reached a thumb out and touched it. She didn’t have a name for the stone; the people in Steel Town had names for all sorts of rocks. She’d seen that kind before, though, in Steel Town, in small oval pieces dotting a chain hanging around a woman’s neck.

The stone was translucent, and the longer she stared at it, the more colors emerged. It was only mostly green, she realized after a moment. There were faint streaks of white, gray, and shades of blue in the stone too, and it felt … greasy to the touch … smooth and wet and terribly, terribly strong.

“Unbreakable.” Mudwort somehow knew the spear could not be shattered. Tiny slivers of gold, silver, and platinum were inlaid along the haft, matching some of the patterns that had been woven into the cloth protecting it. Maybe they were words or the scratchings of some sort of spell, like on Direfang’s spire. Too there were gems the size of gnats that sparkled in the sunlight. “Diamonds.” Mudwort had learned the name of that particular stone from listening to Dark Knights in the mine. They were always hoping the goblins would unearth diamonds along with the steady supply of ore.

There were also emeralds, brighter than the green of the haft; sapphires, like in the necklace she’d acquired in the dwarven village; pale yellow gems that looked like drops of sunlight suspended on the surface of a pond; and rubies that looked purple set against the green. In her vision Mudwort had thought the spear tip was metal, as it gleamed dully yet looked sword-sharp.

“Obsidian.” She knew the name of that stone, and she’d encountered it several times before in the mining camp. This obsidian, which made up the spear tip, was ten times as beautiful. Black glass, some of the knights in Steel Town had called obsidian. It was like glass, she had to admit, but as far as she knew, obsidian came only from the volcanoes that ringed the mining camp and stretched north and south in the mountains. There were no volcanoes in the forest.

Opaque in the center and where it joined the haft, the stone was translucent along the edges, all of it with a vitreous luster. A silver band wrapped around the spear just below the obsidian tip. Dangling from it were dark yellow feathers. Despite the passing of time and lying under the earth, the feathers appeared as if they’d just been plucked from a bird.

None of the birds in the trees around the clearing matched the coloration of the feathers, however. Mudwort cocked her head. The birds were still perched in the various trees, but they’d all stopped chirping and singing. It was deathly silent.

She stood and grasped the spear firmly, eyes scanning the woods around her. Something had spooked the birds, and though she couldn’t see anything, she was a little spooked too.

“Nothing,” she said after a moment. “There’s nothing there. There’s nothing to be frightened of.”

She looked at the spear again-her spear. The feathers were Chislev’s symbol. Mudwort knew that only because Saarh had said so. She’d heard the long-ago shaman talking about the god in one of the mystic journeys she’d taken through the earth. Saarh was foolish to worship a god that would leave behind such a beautiful, magical thing, Mudwort thought. Through the centuries goblins had learned to abandon the gods, just as the gods had abandoned the goblins.

And just as Chislev had abandoned the spear.

“Nothing to be afraid of.” Mudwort shook off her nervousness and decided perhaps she had spooked the birds by splitting the earth and bringing the great artifact up from its long slumber. She held the spear above her head like a warrior might.

“Oh!” The sunlight set the spear to fairly glowing. All the gems and inlaid metal sparkled and sent little shards of color spiraling away. “Incredible.”

Mudwort nearly dropped the spear in surprise when she heard a voice other than her own.

“That certainly is incredible and beautiful.” Standing at the base of one of the ash trees was Thya.

AT LAST, THIS IS MUDWORT’S SPEAR

Thya’s eyes shifted between Mudwort and the spear, her gaze finally settling on Mudwort, whose eyes were narrowed suspiciously.

“An amazing thing Mudwort has found,” Thya said amiably. She shuffled forward, one hand drifting to her belt to worry at a small brass buckle, the other reaching forward. “Grallik said Mudwort was looking for something. Grallik will be surprised at just what Mudwort has found.”

Mudwort raised her upper lip, but the snarl was lost on Thya, who was busy staring at the spear. A large crow launched itself from a high branch, cawing loudly and sending some of the sparrows flying in all directions.

Thya held out both her hands and wiggled her fingers.

“No, Thya. At last, this is Mudwort’s spear. Only Mudwort’s.”

“Just want to hold it,” Thya cooed. “Just for a moment. Beautiful. Nothing more beautiful than that.”

Thya was right, Mudwort thought. She’d never seen anything more glorious. The sapphire necklace she kept hidden paled next to the spear’s display of sparkling colors. The haft of the spear slightly warmed against her palm, the dizzying sensation fainter but still present … something else was present too. Something she couldn’t see or decipher. What?

“What?” Mudwort asked aloud.

An answer came but she couldn’t quite make it out.

Voices?

Mudwort heard Thya, asking just to touch the spear or to look at it up closer. She heard the leaves too, repeating “hope” and “wonder” and other words she couldn’t distinguish because Thya continued babbling. She heard another voice, a somewhat familiar voice, Mudwort thought. If Thya would just be quiet, maybe she could hear.

“Stop talking, Thya.”

“Just one touch.”

“No, Thya. I told you, this is Mudwort’s spear. Mudwort’s only. Go away.” She knew she’d never be able to go back to Direfang’s city. She couldn’t risk Thya or someone else stealing her treasure while she slept. “Come no closer.”

Thya stopped about five feet away, a hurt expression on her face. “One touch?”

Mudwort shook her head vehemently.

“That’s not a goblin spear. It’s much too long. And goblins would not make anything like that. Could not make anything like that. Mudwort, that is so beautiful. Where was it?”

More questions tumbled out of Thya: How did Mudwort learn about the spear? How did she find it? Who made it? Was it magic?

“Of course it’s magic.” Thya answered her own question. “Smells like magic. A very strong magic smell.” She wriggled her nose and took another step, edging closer. “Just a little touch, Mudwort, please. Hard to follow the footprints here. So much walking. Walk. Walk. Walk. Just one touch.”

Mudwort shook her head fiercely and held the spear in front of her, threatening. Thya looked surprised and shuffled back.

“Sorry,” she said. “Sorry, Mudwort. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.” Thya cast her head down then looked up, her expression growing brighter. “Direfang and Orvago think the Dark Knights are coming. That would be a good weapon against them, a beautiful and magical weapon. Direfang will be pleased. It will kill a lot of Dark Knights. Maybe it will scare all the Dark Knights away.” She gestured with her head for Mudwort to follow her back the way they’d come. “I can walk with Mudwort.”

“I stay here,” Mudwort said resolutely. “Mudwort can stay right here.”

“Mudwort isn’t coming back to the city?”

Mudwort thrust out her chin. “There is no city to go back to. S’dard to think the ruins are a city. Flattened, burned, all gone. Don’t need to be there. A waste of time, that place is.”

Thya’s eyes narrowed. “Mudwort has to come back. Direfang needs-”

“Direfang doesn’t need this spear.”

Thya pointed at Mudwort, her little face screwed up into a venomous expression. “Direfang needs Mudwort. Needs Mudwort’s magic. The Dark Knights are searching for goblins and-”

“No.”

“Desperately need Mudwort to help fight the-”

“The Dark Knights won’t find this goblin,” Mudwort retorted. Another crow launched itself from a tree and was followed by another, both cawing loudly. “Direfang neither.”

“Mudwort is-”

“Never going back there, Thya. Tell Direfang good-bye.”

Thya looked despondent. “Sharing spells and helping the city is very important, Mudwort. Graytoes loves Mudwort. Graytoes and Umay.”

“Umay,” the leaves whispered. Again, the goblin word for hope. The leaves spoke other words too: danger, warning, wonder, magic. But maybe they spoke nothing and Mudwort only imagined things in her confusion and anger at the intrusive goblin.

“No! Stay back, Thya!” Mudwort hadn’t intended to physically lash out at Thya. She had enjoyed Thya’s company and sharing spells and listening to her clan’s tales of their villages on the far side of the Nerakan mountains. But then Thya had lunged forward, maybe to touch the spear, maybe to grab it, and Mudwort brought the spear up quickly, level and firm.

The spear tip penetrated the other goblin’s belly, sinking in like a hot coal dropped in a snowdrift. Thya’s eyes grew so wide in surprise that Mudwort thought they might pop out of her leathery head.

Thya’s mouth dropped open, in astonishment or perhaps to say some admonishing words to Mudwort. But the spear sank in deeper, the tip coming out Thya’s back. She sagged and Mudwort caught her weight and eased her to the ground, pulling the spear free.

“Thya?”

There was plenty of blood spreading away from Thya, but curiously, none stuck to the spear.

“Thya’s dead,” Mudwort murmured to herself.

As heavy as the weapon should have been, given its size and make-up, it had felt insubstantial in Mudwort’s hands. It had been so easy to kill Thya with it.

Mudwort kneeled and stared at Thya’s corpse.

“Didn’t mean to kill you, Thya. Sorry.” Thya had died so quickly, Mudwort hadn’t the chance to apologize. “Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.”

Was that what the trees had meant when their leaves whispered “danger”? That the spear was so sharp, it was dangerous?

Mudwort rocked forward and rubbed a smudge of dirt off Thya’s face. Then she willed the ground to open up and bury the goblin. She stared blankly as the earth did her bidding.

Someday, she would have to tell Direfang that Thya had died … but not how it had happened. Never that, not how it had happened. Of course she’d tell Direfang only if she ever saw him again. She had no intention of returning to his ruined city and accidentally killing other goblins who drew too close to her treasure.

Would she ever see Direfang again?

MEETING DIREFANG

Mudwort blinked furiously, looking all around. Where had the daylight gone? She preferred twilight to sunshine, her eyes saw better in the half-dark, so it wasn’t hard for her to sort through the shadows. Daylight had suddenly vanished.

And where were the trees?

For that matter, where was the grass and her prized spear?

Her stomach climbed up into her throat with the shocking realization that she was no longer in the magical clearing but was back inside the hated Dark Knight mines in Neraka.

In place of the beautiful spear, she held a rusty pickaxe. And instead of the fine Dark Knight shirt she’d fashioned into a tunic, she wore a reeking, threadbare rag that didn’t wholly cover her body. Mudwort’s feet were bare and calloused, her fingers calloused too. She ached all over, especially across her shoulders and down her back-where she always hurt the worst when she mined that damnable ore.

Had the spear been a dream?

“Sour mind, Mudwort has.” That was said by a gray-skinned goblin with a hump in the middle of his back. She’d seen him in the mines several times before, but she didn’t know his name. She never asked any of the workers their names, not wanting to be encumbered by friendship or even a passing conviviality. Names invited conversation, and Mudwort did not like to talk to her kinsmen.

“Sour mind. Talks to rocks. Talks to the pick. Talks to self. Sour, sour mind. Stinky mind.” The humpbacked one spit a gob of phlegm between his feet and faced the wall. Placing one hand on it for support, he raised his pick over a stooped shoulder and brought it sparking against the stone.

There were other goblins in the chamber. Six of them boasted gray skin like the humpbacked one; they called their clan Fellowship of Clay. Mudwort hadn’t asked for the clan name, she’d just heard it several times in reference to the gray-skins. Another six were red-skinned like herself, but it was a different shade of red and they belonged to another clan, one she didn’t know the name of. Thirteen goblins all told, including herself, were mining in one of the deepest chambers in a recently opened mineshaft.

The air there was stale and close, filled with the scent of ore, dirt, and stone, and coupled with the stench of goblins who had gone too long a time without being rained on. Mudwort longed for the fresh air of the clearing-even if that had been a dream.

There wasn’t a light in the chamber, but a bulky lantern hung just beyond the entrance, out in the long tunnel that led up to other chambers where more goblins mined. Its flame cast a hellish glow that caught suspended stone dust amid the murky background.

“Sour mind, Mudwort. Work. Work or die,” Humpbacked said.

She stretched her thin fingers to the wall and felt the vibrations of each pick striking the stone, hurting it. Mudwort couldn’t explain how she knew, but she knew that the stone was in pain from the miners chipping away at it and from the ore that ran through it like veins in a goblin’s body. She found the stone more interesting than the goblins and hobgoblins, and certainly more interesting than her Dark Knight enemies.

“Work or be whipped,” chimed in a red-skinned goblin.

Others also talked about her sour mind, but she ignored them, listening instead to the stone that complained beneath her fingertips. It was old, Mudwort sensed, older than anything, and it did not seem to mind that chunks of it filled with ore were being removed. The ore … itched … was the word Mudwort decided upon. But it did not like to be struck by the picks.

“There is no other way,” she told it as she struck the stone herself so everyone would stop staring at her. Mudwort was more precise, not just chipping away at the wall like the Fellowship of Clay clansmen. She struck only where the ore was, and the stone complained less and less as the hours went on.

Mudwort filled up one sack and lugged it up the tunnel. Sometimes goblins were stationed partway up, and they would take the sacks from the deeper-down workers. It was more efficient that way. But that day no goblins were waiting in the tunnel, so Mudwort had to struggle with the sack all the way up to the surface. Her legs burned by the time she rose above ground, and her eyes burned from the brightness of the midday sun. It glared down on dusty, desolate, ugly Steel Town, a place she had come to hate almost as much as she hated the Dark Knights.

She dropped the sack just beyond the entrance and stared down at the horrid excuse for a city. Rows of Dark Knights stood at attention, reciting their Oath or Measure or whatever they were calling it. Wasted words drifted up to her lofty position.

“Work or die.” That was barked by a Dark Knight stationed at the mine entrance just behind her. He said the words in goblinspeak; a smattering of the knights knew just enough goblinspeak to help them order the slaves around. “Work or die.”

She grumbled and trudged back down the tunnel, taking a fresh sack with her. Too many goblins worked that day. When she’d watched the knights below, she’d also caught a glimpse of the slave pens. There were always goblins there, as the knights worked the slaves in shifts. But there weren’t as many as normal, meaning that the shifts would be longer and the breaks shorter or nonexistent with more goblins mining. The knights needed the ore for something urgent-a battle maybe, Mudwort thought.

“Bring the dream back,” she said as she returned to the chamber and snatched up her pick again. She wanted to be back in the orderly clearing with the magical spear and all the wonderful smells around her and the promise of blueberries nearby to fill her stomach. She didn’t want such a wretched reality.

She touched her fingers to the wall again, searching for the spot where the stone itched the most. Retrieving the best and most chunks of ore brought rewards, and that might mean a shorter shift.

“Nervous,” she muttering to herself, sensing what the stone felt. “Itchy, but nervous more. Anxious and worried.” Mudwort squatted and touched the floor; she didn’t get the same feelings from that stone. Moving around the chamber and ignoring taunts of “Sour-minded s’dard,” she touched the stone again and again.

She circled back to the first spot, near where the humpbacked goblin still worked. He used two hands on the pick handle, swinging it clumsily, for he was tired.

“Stone is nervous here,” she told him. “Don’t like the feeling. It is worried. It is weak.” Her eyebrows rose, realizing she was right; that was what the wall was trying to tell her. “Weak like an old, old goblin. Brittle.”

The humpbacked gray-skin spit another gob of phlegm, shook his head, and struck the wall harder.

Mudwort waved her arm to get his clansmen’s attention. “This wall will break,” she announced. “This ceiling will fall. It is weak like an old, old goblin.”

“The only thing weak is Mudwort’s mind.” The humpbacked goblin sneered. “Sad, sour mind. Go away, Mudwort.”

“Work or die.” That said by a hobgoblin Mudwort had not seen in the mines before. Obviously a foreman, as he wore a whip at his side; he stood in the center of the chamber, slightly stooped because he was taller than the ceiling was high.

An unsightly hobgoblin, he wore a rotting ear hanging on a leather thong around his neck … and was missing one of his own ears. It had been cut off, or bit off in a fight, and so he was wearing it as punishment. He had a few old scars and a few fresh ones. His eyes were as dark as coal and fixed on Mudwort.

“Work or die,” he repeated.

Mudwort nearly obeyed, thinking she might head for the opposite wall and away from the one she somehow knew would collapse. Instead she puffed out her small chest, gesturing behind her.

“The stone is nervous,” she informed the hobgoblin. “It is frail and will fall. The ceiling will come down and squash the Fellowship of Clay. The stone will-”

The hobgoblin irritably waved her silent and went over to the offending wall, tugging back the gray-skinned goblin and his clansmen. He dutifully inspected the stone then shrugged, returned to the center of the chamber, and ordered them all back to work.

With a shrug Mudwort went over to the opposite wall, finding a spot to work between two red-skinned goblins, who made it clear they were not happy with her presence. She found a section where the stone was itchy, where she thought it would be safe. She worked fast, even though her arms and back protested.

“Work or die,” she muttered. “Work and die.”

She’d just managed to fill her ore sack and reach the entrance to the chamber when, behind her, she heard a sharp crack followed instantly by a rumble. She jumped ahead and scurried up, dragging her sack; to leave it would be to risk punishment. Shouts followed, and there came another rumble, though fainter. Mudwort coughed. Stone dust filtered into the tunnel from where the ceiling had collapsed.

Two red-skinned goblins pressed by her, waving their hands in front of their faces and coughing worse than Mudwort. One turned and pointed a finger at her.

“Mudwort did something to make the ceiling fall. Mudwort killed Gobber.”

So finally Mudwort knew the name of the humpbacked goblin. “Gobber will be remembered,” she told the red-skinned goblin, who shook his fist and hurried away.

Mudwort walked slower up the tunnel, as the imminent danger had passed. Two more red-skinned goblins passed her by, followed by another who was helping his limping kinsman. Moments later five gray-skinned goblins came up the tunnel. After them came the hobgoblin, who cradled the broken body of Gobber.

The hobgoblin paused at the intersection of another tunnel. The ceiling was taller there, with thick beams used for holding lanterns and ropes. The hobgoblin foreman stared down at Mudwort.

“Said the ceiling would fall.”

“Mudwort.”

“Mudwort said the ceiling would fall.”

“The stone said so. It was nervous. Told that one, I did.” She pointed to the corpse. “Didn’t believe, though. Now Gobber is dead. Told-”

“Direfang,” he supplied.

“But Direfang did not listen either.”

“Listening now,” he said. “Listening very closely.”

Direfang followed Mudwort out of the mine and down the trail that led to the slave pens. East of the pens was a scorched piece of earth that had three goblin bodies lying on it. The hobgoblin carefully laid down the dead Gobber.

“Mudwort talks to stone?”

She shrugged and looked up at the mountain, wondering if she would be sent back inside, hoping more that the dream would return of the clearing and the beautiful spear and dead Thya.

He repeated his question.

She made a huffing sound and shook her head. “No. Mudwort does not talk to the stone. The stone talks to Mudwort.”

He looked after her from that day forward, forcing her to eat when she hadn’t taken food in a while, bringing her water-and sometimes giving her an extra ration of water on particularly hot afternoons. It wasn’t just her that he took care of, she noticed. Though he was every bit the foreman the Dark Knights demanded he be, and though he whipped recalcitrant goblins on occasion, there was something almost kindly about him.

During his shifts Direfang did not work the pregnant goblins as hard or as long as the others. The old ones were given more breaks when the Dark Knight taskmasters were not watching. And on several occasions, he’d snatch up a pick and work side-by-side with those he was assigned to supervise.

He became the closest thing to a friend Mudwort had ever claimed, and her shifts in the mines did not feel so onerous when she worked under him. From time to time, she would tell Direfang what the stone was saying.

And always he would listen respectfully.

Mudwort blinked furiously.

Good-the daylight had returned, and she was once again in the clearing with the orderly trees.

“Dreaming, but not dreaming,” she muttered. Somehow she had sent her senses through the earth-as she had on many occasions before-looking into the past and going back to the mining camp where she’d first met Direfang. She’d been thinking about the hobgoblin, and likely had unwittingly cast a spell to look in on him.

Maybe she should look in on him at his ruined city. Maybe she should check if he’d started rebuilding again, or if he was busy preparing for war against the knights.

“No.” She grasped her precious spear tightly. “No and no. Done with Direfang.” If she never saw him again, she would not have to share the spear … or tell him about dead Thya.

NOT FOR HOPE

Mudwort spent the next few hours spiraling out from the clearing. She wore the rotting cloth with the metallic threads draped around her shoulders like a shawl, while gripping the spear in front of her in both hands. Mudwort had killed Dark Knights before, knocking her first victim down the side of a mountain when an earthquake struck. No one had seen her do that killing, but then he was an enemy; she’d never kill someone she didn’t consider an enemy.

Except Thya. “Poor, poor Thya.”

Mudwort didn’t have any friends, except perhaps for Direfang. But Thya was close to a friend, and maybe Mudwort would have eventually considered her one. Thya was a clan leader, and her clansmen would sorely miss her. Draath and Graytoes would miss mingling magic with Thya. Mudwort would miss that a little too.

Mudwort’s gut clenched and she squeezed her hands so tight around the spear haft that her fingers felt numb. Maybe Thya had meant no harm. Maybe Thya had been a friend after all.

“A sour, sour mind I have,” Mudwort pronounced. “Thinking too much about this spear, Mudwort’s spear. Thinking only about the spear. Selfish.” She paced faster and squeezed the spear tighter. Even though she didn’t want to, she thought she should tell someone about Thya’s death. That way they wouldn’t come looking for the goblin; they’d never find her, as deeply buried as she was, as well concealed as Mudwort had made the grave.

They’d never mourn her and never say, “Thya is remembered.”

“S’dard!” Mudwort realized suddenly that she’d left Thya’s body intact. She whirled around. “S’dard. Sour, sour mind!”

She returned to the clearing and unearthed the dead goblin. Mudwort had rarely participated in the goblin death rituals that involved nearly everyone else. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in them; she did. Before escaping with Direfang and the rest of the slaves, she simply didn’t participate in much of anything.

“Leave nothing intact,” she told herself. How much to cut away? Some goblins thought all that was necessary was to cut off a finger or a toe. The body no longer whole, the spirit could not return. Other goblins thought the body had to be essentially torn apart and burned, but that would take a lot of time. One clan liked to sink bodies in the water for the fish to nibble apart. Another hung bodies in trees for the crows to pick at.

Mudwort thought about it and made a decision. She used the spear to slice off Thya’s left arm only; so sharp, the spear made the task easy. Before burying the body again, Mudwort searched Thya’s pockets and found a pretty shell and several carved wooden beads on a string. Mudwort put them in her own pocket.

A few gestures, and the ground sealed itself again, hiding Thya deep inside. Mudwort buried Thya’s arm under a silver birch several yards away.

“Thya is remembered,” Mudwort said aloud. “Thya loved to mingle magic and was good at it. Thya led a clan well.” She paused and rested against the spear, thinking she should say more because, after all, Thya had been her friend, almost. “Thya was worried about the Dark Knights and wanted to help Direfang and the smashed, burned city. Thya cared about others.” She paused again. “Thya was curious, too curious. Thya should not have followed Mudwort. Thya would still be alive helping Direfang and worrying about the Dark Knights otherwise. Curiosity led to Thya’s downfall.” Mudwort reverently bowed her head. “Thya is remembered.”

She padded across the grave, smoothing it with her feet, inspecting the moss to make certain everything was perfect and no one would ever notice that the earth had been disturbed.

“Thya was simply too curious,” she said. Mudwort thought the ceremony might make her feel less guilty about killing the goblin, but it hadn’t. “Did Saarh kill friends too?” Had her counterpart from ancient times accidentally discovered how sharp the spear was by thrusting it through the belly of a friend?

Mudwort intended to look in on Saarh again. She wanted to learn more about the spear and what the ancient goblin leader had done with it.

“Maybe look for Saarh now.” She left the clearing and sat between a pin oak and a birch tree with scarlet leaves. A blueberry bush was within arm’s reach, and there were plenty of plump berries on the lower branches where the birds hadn’t yet feasted.

But the blueberries didn’t interest her. Mudwort had lost her appetite. She crossed her legs and rested the spear across her knees. “A long time ago …” Mudwort began. “What did Saarh do with this spear? What great things did Saarh accomplish?”

A vision came to her so fast, it was difficult to comprehend it.

From a distance Mudwort watched Saarh’s village in a time of thriving, the goblins multiplying and becoming hunters and farmers and trading with black-haired elves who came from the south. Then she watched as the buildings started to deteriorate and the goblins moved east toward the mountains. Mudwort recalled Saarh and Brab saying the goblins would return to the earth.

But Brab and Saarh didn’t go with the clan, and the spear stayed behind with Saarh. The shaman waved it, and the earth swallowed up the homes, as if the clan had never been there. Another wave and saplings sprung up where the goblins used to farm and dance. Vines covered the older trees and filled out with purple and red flowers. Saarh was using the spear to enhance the forest and cover the tracks of her people.

If Mudwort wanted to help, perhaps she could use Chislev’s spear to hide Direfang and his ruined city from the Dark Knights. But still, Mudwort did not want to go back.

“Forward,” she thought. “Only forward from now on.” It was time to peer into the future. Her brow furrowed in concentration, and she ground her teeth together. She touched a hand to the ground, thinking to burrow her fingers into the earth.

Suddenly the image in her head shifted, and she again spotted the clearing where she’d unearthed the spear.

“No. No. No.” She’d wanted to see into the future. “No …”

A moment more, and she got her wish. The clearing looked vastly different, overgrown with holly and blueberry and raspberry bushes, small trees sprouting where before only moss grew. The ash trees that circled it were still there, but they were taller, more than a hundred feet in height, Mudwort guessed. The pin oaks, silver birches, and more were also taller and fuller. A good amount of time must have passed.

Where was she in that future? How many years or decades ahead? Could she look in on herself? Could she see what she was doing in the future-place?

Mudwort concentrated so hard that her head ached but was rewarded with nothing, just as she’d come up with nothing when she’d tried to see what had eventually happened to Saarh.

“The earth keeps secrets,” she hissed. “Won’t show Mudwort the secrets.”

Instead she focused on the spear. Find the spear in the future, she decided, and she would find herself. She would trick the earth.

As magical as the spear was, Mudwort felt certain it would grant her a long, long life. There was that kind of magic in the spear: forever magic, god magic.

“Find the spear. This spear.” Mudwort tapped the haft.

The forest spun into a miasma of greens and browns until brown gradually became the more predominant color. When the image cleared, Mudwort was looking down upon a mountain. Crawling around on the mountaintop were clans of goblins. They were all manner of color, just like the ones in Direfang’s ruined city: gray, brown, yellow, red, and some multicolored like the Skinweavers.

The goblins weren’t alone. There were dwarves there too. Mudwort had never met a dwarf before cutting through the village in the mountains south of Steel Town, the disease-ridden village where Graytoes stole the baby. Dwarves didn’t usually mingle with goblins.

Those dwarves were different. They were all ruddy-skinned, thick, and with short, muscular limbs. All of them sported beards, some of the beards braided and with bits of bone and beads woven in the plaits. They all dressed in clothes and leather armor. Many of them had weapons hanging from their belts.

The goblins carried weapons too, fine ones forged of metal like the weapons in Steel Town had been. There wasn’t a single crude club or a simple knife.

Were the two races set to battle each other? Mudwort peered closer and saw they didn’t fight, they … mingled. The goblins and dwarves talked and laughed, argued and pointed east toward what Mudwort guessed was the Plains of Dust. They acted as if they had joined together, belonged together.

“Find Mudwort’s spear. Use the magic. Find the spear.”

The image of the dwarves and goblins became sharper, the colors more vivid.

“So the spear is there. Where?” Though she looked hard, she didn’t spy herself in the crowd. There must be hundreds of the goblins and dwarves on the mountain, hobgoblins, too, she noted. She saw more going in and out of caves. “The dwarves live in the caves. Goblins too,” she said a moment later when she saw a yellow-skinned, elderly goblin helped out by a young dwarf. “Live together in the caves.” She shuddered at the thought.

“Mudwort’s spear,” she droned. “Find it. Find it. Find it.” She flew like a hawk, swooping low over the vision, skimming south, banking, then coming up toward the north. She didn’t recognize any of the goblins on the mountain. Maybe she was in one of the caves, holding court as Saarh had done when Mudwort had first looked in on her. Maybe the vision was so far in the future that all the goblins she knew-Direfang too-had died. Maybe she was all that was left, and she was holding court.

“Umay?” Her senses hovered above a female dwarf who looked strangely familiar. And she was the one holding court. The squat figure stepped up to the highest level spot on the mountain. She clutched Mudwort’s spear in her right hand.

Mudwort’s stomach clenched as she stared. The dwarf was indeed Umay; Mudwort recognized her eyes and nose-all the years, decades, had not changed those features. And her smile, that was the same too. There were wrinkles at the edges of Umay’s eyes and mouth and creases along her wide forehead. If Umay was old, at least well into middle age, likely at least a century or two had passed. Mudwort had heard dwarves live a very long time.

“How did Umay get Mudwort’s spear?” Mudwort vehemently shook her head. “That is not for Umay. That is not for … ‘hope.’”

Again the wind blew through the trees surrounding Mudwort. “Hope,” the leaves whispered.

In the astonishing vision, it appeared Umay had brought the dwarves and goblins together-a curious but perhaps noble undertaking, Mudwort had to admit. Graytoes must have raised her stolen child well. The goblins looked healthy and happy, not a too-skinny one among those she saw. They had fine weapons and armor, good clothes. The dwarves treated the goblins as equals, friends and allies.

“This spear is not intended for Umay. This spear is for Mudwort! Only Mudwort!” She shook as she pulled back from the image and shook her head to clear her senses and pull back to the present.

“No. That will not come to pass.” Mudwort’s tone was stern. “Umay will never gain Mudwort’s spear.”

She struck out north. She would get as far away from Direfang and his mangled city as possible. That way the spear would never be separated from her, would never fall into Umay’s clutches.

Mudwort heard voices again, the leaves murmuring, along with a somewhat familiar voice. Saarh? It sounded like Saarh.

“Shut up,” Mudwort growled. “Shut up. Shut up.”

After a mile she couldn’t hear the voices anymore, just the birds and a creek bubbling nearby. Mudwort would make a home for herself far from Direfang and Graytoes, and farther still from Umay.

Mudwort didn’t need anyone since she had her treasure.

“This spear will never be for ‘hope.’”

DIREFANG’S ROCKY STAND

It worked, your plan. The knights walked right into your elaborate trap.” Grallik had just set fire to a mound of goblin bodies. “More of the Dark Knights died than your people, Foreman. No doubt they hadn’t expected any tricks, didn’t think you capable of being devious.”

“Or prepared,” Direfang replied. The hobgoblin held the great axe he’d gained from the dead Dark Knight. It felt lighter than such a weapon should. He knew not to set it down or another hobgoblin would snatch it up. The axe was a fine prize.

Nearby, Keth directed a crew to strip the dead Dark Knights of all valuables. Sallor, Draath, and Neacha pulled the naked bodies into the earth bowls. Crows hovered above the knights’ bodies, more birds strutted on the ground and darted in to pick at the bodies.

“There has been nothing but death for weeks and weeks,” Direfang said. His voice was flat and emotionless. “In the mining camp. Since the escape. Even here. Especially here. So much death.” He fixed his gaze on a line of small pine trees across the river. “There is no freedom without death, it seems, wizard. And yet isn’t freedom worth any price?”

Grallik’s magic brought down another column of fire to make the bodies burn faster. “They will come back, Foreman. The Dark Knights are dedicated and driven, and they will not back down.”

“Yes.”

“You could move your people. South across the river or toward the mountains. You could …” Grallik watched Graytoes. She’d taken a pack from one of the Dark Knights and cut holes in the bottom to accommodate Umay’s legs. She wore the pack on her back, the baby looking over her shoulder, and she was collecting belts that had been taken from the knights. “But they will track you, Foreman. They followed you all the way here from Neraka.”

“The clans will stand here,” Direfang said. “No more goblins want to leave. Grallik can leave, though. South across the river or toward the mountains. Or to the coast, like Qel.”

Grallik noticed that despite the many fatalities, none of the survivors were clamoring to leave. “I said before I would stay here. I suspect the knights want me worse than they want you. The Dark Knights do not suffer traitors, and they consider me a traitor. I will leave if you order me to. Otherwise, no.”

“The Dark Knights will suffer,” Direfang cut back, deliberately ignoring Grallik’s offer to leave. “And the Dark Knights will die like anyone dies. The Dark Knights will not steal the clans’ freedom anymore. This ends here, wizard.”

The hobgoblin whirled away from the edge of the bluff and stared at the mound of burning bodies.

“Rustymane is remembered,” he said softly.

Louder, he said, “Grallik, come.”

Moments later they were at the spire he’d lugged all the way from the north and had carefully planted. “This didn’t keep the Dark Knights from finding the goblins,” he said. “But it might have slowed them. Useless now.” He put his shoulder to the spire and pushed it out of the ground. Then he rolled it over the edge and watched it topple into the river. He took the three polished rocks out of the ground underneath it, keeping the blue one and tossing the other two over the side into the water. The magic of the spire was no longer working, perhaps Mudwort could find her way back home. Perhaps she’d simply gotten lost.

“Those prisoners are useless too.” Direfang nodded to the north. Tied at the base of a tree were two naked Dark Knights, both with legs broken from falling into the earth bowls. Direfang gestured toward them, the same foul gesture Grimstone had made repeatedly before the hobgoblin banished him from the horde.

“I don’t know those knights, Foreman.”

“But you do.” Orvago approached, his long legs carrying him toward Grallik in a half dozen steps. The gnoll’s hands and chest were bloody. But it wasn’t his own blood; it was that of the many patients he was tending. “Foreman Direfang, I’ve done what I could for your goblins. There are three Boarhunters and a Flamegrass clansman who are beyond my aid. They will die before morning. They may die before the hour is out, I fear.”

Direfang growled but said nothing.

Orvago turned his attention back to Grallik. “You do know them. You know them because they are knights. You know what kind of people they are and what drives them. You know what is in their hearts. And you can learn something from them that they wouldn’t tell the foreman or me or anyone else. You can do this because you know the Dark Knights. You know how to talk to them.”

“I’ll see what I can learn,” Grallik said, turning to head toward the prisoners.

Direfang followed Orvago over to a group of wounded goblins.

“I am not a healer of Qel’s abilities, Foreman Direfang, though I don’t know if even she could mend these.” The gnoll had bandaged the four goblins with strips of cloth he’d cut from Dark Knight tabards and cloaks. Because they were black, the bandages effectively covered the blood. “This one here …”

“Neph,” Direfang supplied. He didn’t know the names of the other three, though. “Neph of the Flamegrass clan. Neph was a slave in Steel Town. Neph was one of the first to leave when the earthquakes struck. And Neph returned to fight the Dark Knights and free those whose minds had been ensnared by the-”

“Skull men? I remember that. Neph, you call him. I might be able to help. At least let me try.”

Direfang’s eyes widened as the human who had spoken stepped out of the shadows. Orvago tugged his oak cudgel from his belt, ready to fight. “It’s all right,” the hobgoblin said, staying Orvago’s hand. “This is the Skull Man Horace.”

Graytoes had kept the goblins from killing the Ergothian. So many goblins had joined Direfang after the exodus from Steel Town that some of them had never seen Horace before. That he wasn’t in Dark Knight attire, and that he was in chains, helped. Several stood behind him, wary and with weapons ready.

“Found the Skull Man for Direfang,” Graytoes said. “Found Horace. Brought the Skull Man here. Thought he could help.”

“Graytoes did not find the Skull Man,” another yellow-skinned goblin corrected. “The Skull Man walked right into the city. Almost died at the hands of the Skinweavers.”

Graytoes thrust out her bottom lip peevishly. “Saved the Skull Man, then. Saved him from Pigeyes and Nothumbs.”

Orvago used the narrow end of the cudgel to pry open one of the links on Horace’s arm chains next to a wrist manacle. The Ergothian explained how he had been taken prisoner on Schallsea Island and brought there. Orvago worked on the other wrist.

“And they let you get away now? After all their trouble?” the gnoll asked warily. “That does not sound like diligent Dark Knights. It sounds like sloppy ones.”

“Sloppy now maybe, but only because of the foreman.” Horace brought his hands up to his face, wiping off sweat. Direfang studied him. Horace looked changed, defeated. The skin hung on his arms, as if he’d been starved, and his face had developed jowls. His eyes were sunken. There were marks on his shoulders, as if he’d been beaten. Direfang knew well the signs of torture.

“You threw them into disarray,” Horace said. He shuffled over to Neph, the chains around his ankles limiting his movements. “They certainly weren’t paying any attention to me in all the confusion. My usefulness to them was over anyway.” He gently worked the bandages away from the goblin’s chest. “I well know they were going to kill me after the battle. A traitor to them, I am.”

“The Dark Knights will come back here,” Direfang said. “You are not saved yet.”

“Aye, Foreman. Not this night, however. They’ve wounds to lick and plans to make. And they know your kind sees well in the darkness. They won’t cede another advantage to you. But they will come back, I agree. Early in the morning is my guess.”

Horace’s hand glowed orange. “Zebir Jotun, Zura the Maelstrom,” he began. “Zeboim, who I revere above all else.” His fingers brightened as he touched them to the gaping wound in the goblin’s chest. “By the silvery hair of the precious Sea Mother, heal Neph and keep him safe.” Softer, he added, “Keep us all safe.”

Horace went from one goblin to the next, working hard to heal and pray, until he collapsed near the last one he tended.

Direfang had been gathering the clan leaders and discussing the options for the coming showdown with the knights. “Little more can be done to make this place more defensible,” he explained. “No more tracks, and no time for tricks. The Dark Knights’ magic would see through all of that this time.”

He instructed them to bring everyone together; then he returned to check on Horace.

The hobgoblin did not care for humans, and he detested Dark Knights. Like Mudwort-still missing-he hated Dark Knights above all for enslaving him years past. But he had grown familiar with Horace and was glad the Ergothian had returned to heal the wounded.

The four goblins the Ergothian had assisted were resting well, and Orvago had pronounced that all of them would live.

“Aye, they will at least live through the night now,” Grallik said. The wizard had spent the better part of an hour questioning Direfang’s prisoners. “But more goblins will die when the Dark Knights return. Without Mudwort, our magic is limited.”

Direfang grunted. “Did the knights say anything useful?” He pointed with the axe to where the humans remained tied up.

“Less than what Horace has been able to report. There were nine hundred knights, led by Commander Bera Kata.”

“Less knights now. Killed some.”

“Which will make Bera angrier, Foreman. She is a fanatic, a decorated soldier. Her men are loyal, and she is a clever strategist. She can’t be faulted for her loss here; like her peers, she underestimated goblinkind. But she will not underestimate you again.” Grallik watched Horace twitch in his troubled sleep. “They have a sorcerer with them who practices the darkest arts. Horace said Isaam can speak with the dead. I’ve heard of the man. His magic is likely more potent than mine.”

“Speaks with the dead? Then Isaam soon will have a lot of knights to speak with,” Direfang said brusquely. Behind him the ground was covered with goblins, all their colors mingling in the growing shadows. Twilight was claiming the sky.

“The Gray Robe agrees, the Dark Knights will come back.” The hobgoblin spit at the ground and raised his new axe. The blade gleamed despite the darkness. “The Dark Knights would come in the morning, he predicts. But goblins will not wait for the Dark Knights. This ends here, Grallik, Orvago. And this ends tonight.”

Direfang turned and walked through the army, marching away from his ruined city and toward where the knights had fled. The goblins fell into step behind him, first a few, slowly, then more quickly and in greater numbers, forming ranks as straight as any Dark Knight formation.

“Foreman Direfang intends to take the fight to the Dark Knights,” Orvago observed, turning to follow.

Grallik nodded. “Foreman Direfang has a death wish.”

BERA’S GRIEF

We go at them come first light,” Bera was saying. She walked in a tight circle in front of Isaam and Doleman, striking her fist against the palm of her hand, her eyes boring into theirs. Her thoughts whirled; she did not try to hide her haggard, harried expression. She’d let her men march into a trap.

And she’d let Zocci die.

They’d cut off his head-a big, ugly hobgoblin had done that. And then the murderer had taken Zocci’s ancestral axe, taken his life.

Her throat was tight and dry; her breath came in ragged bursts. She had rarely given vent to grief because she had never let herself get close to any of her men before. But the grief over Zocci hit her like a hammer. She’d had honest feelings for Zoccinder; she’d never know if they would have had any future together.

By the memory of the Dark Queen, don’t let me cry! She paced faster, thinking, trying hard to push the memories of the lost men out of her mind, striking her fist with renewed fury.

“Rats, they are. Stinking, filthy, a disease festering on this land.” But she couldn’t call them stupid any longer. “Kill them all. We must kill them. Come first light, there will be so much blood, the ground will not be able to drink it all in.”

She abruptly stopped and squatted. Isaam held a lantern over a patch of ground she’d been drawing on. “Here’s the bluff. I don’t think they’ll run far from it. The place is fairly defensible with all the pits they’ve dug, and with their druid who can bring the trees to life, but there must be a way. I wish we knew how competent the druid was, the scope of his magic.”

“I’ve an answer for that, Commander,” Isaam answered. “I’ve a way to neutralize their druid.” The sorcerer touched his finger to the lantern glass, raising his eyes to meet hers.

“I think I well know what you’ve in mind, old friend. Be careful with that sort of magic.” Bera made a mark to show their current position. “They knew better than to follow us here, the stinking rats. With Isaam’s shield keeping them at bay and us having the advantage here, they will stay put. They’ve no traps to rely on here. The advantage is ours away from their wretched camp.”

“But the druid,” Doleman risked asking. “Won’t the druid have every advantage here, where the trees are thick?”

“Apparently you did not hear Isaam.” Bera shook her head and continued to draw in the dirt. “We will come at them here and here and here, forcing them to the edge of the bluff and over. Three positions this time, at first light. Their eyes are best in the darkness, I believe. So we’ll have to wait until our eyes have the edge. Too, Isaam has some important work to do first.”

Word had reached her that the prisoner Horace had escaped during the brief battle. She had fumed then, and she fumed again.

“No provisions now or in the morning for the men who guarded him,” she ordered. “And no one goes looking for him. In his condition he won’t go far. Let some bear eat him.”

“What if he makes it to the goblins?” Doleman was again the only skeptic. “He could tell them our strength.”

She rubbed out a few marks and made some more. “He’s not so stupid, Lieutenant. They’d kill him before they recognized him. And if by chance they didn’t, then we’ll kill him at first sight when we march into goblin town.” She drew lines to indicate the river and made scratches for the pine forest on the other side. “Isaam’s shield-what he used to protect us-will be erected here and will keep the goblins from climbing down the bluff and escaping. We’ll pin them at the edge of the bluff.”

“What makes you think they haven’t already fled?” A knight who had been watching from a polite distance asked softly.

“Because they’re not stupid.” Not like I once thought they were, she added silently to herself. “They know we’ll come at them again and again and again. So they’ll make their stand because they have no choice. And they’ll make it here because of all their clever little pits.”

“And because they’re tired of running,” Isaam added. “I know I would be tired of running from us.” The sorcerer put the lantern on the ground and peered away into the growing darkness where the vast ranks of Dark Knights waited, some standing, some sitting, none of them having removed their armor, many of them eagerly polishing and sharpening their weapons for the coming fight.

He backed away and let the growing shadows to the south swallow him.

Bera pointed at her crude map again, a gesture that drew Doleman down close by her. “Here and here and here. Yes, they’ll be expecting us, but this time they’ll be the ones trying to retreat.”

“And failing.” Doleman seemed to be persuaded, pointing to the line Bera had drawn to indicate Isaam’s shield spell. “They’ll be caught against an unseen wall conjured by Isaam, and we’ll pin them with our arrows.”

“And with Isaam’s fire magic. They like to burn the corpses of their fallen? We’ll burn them alive. Victory will be ours at first light.” Bera rose and brushed the dirt off her knees. “Pass the orders to the other lieutenants. Set up a watch.” She stared at the men and lowered her voice. “How many did we lose, Lieutenant?”

He stood and spoke equally as softly. “Fifty-one, Commander. Others are badly wounded.”

“That’s fifty-one too many.” She stepped carefully through the underbrush, relying on the emerging stars for light. It took her a while to find Isaam as he’d walked farther south than she’d expected. He stood, his gaze searching ahead.

He turned to meet her eyes. “You blame yourself for the battle’s loss. But you must realize the outcome of this day was not your fault.” Isaam could say such things to Bera because of their years together. “I doubt any other commander would have done things differently. You knew where the goblins were and you-”

“I don’t know if I loved him, Isaam.”

“But you cared for him.”

“Yes. He made me feel young again.”

“Then grieve, Commander. Grieve while I go to work.”

“The goblins smell horrible, Isaam. Good that the wind blows toward them. It keeps away their stink. They are hideous, and they chatter endlessly in a vile, vile tongue that sounds like wild dogs in heat yapping. The clothes they wear mock men. Shirts too big, hanging on them like rags. Most of them have yellow eyes like raw egg yolks, making them look sick. Bumpy skin, scabrous, looking worse than sickness. A veritable disease, I say they are, on this land. They sully the earth. They killed him, Isaam.”

“Grieve, Commander.”

Tears hung at the corners of her eyes, but she would not surrender to them. “After the last goblin is dead, old friend. And after the traitor Grallik N’sera has been burned. Then, perhaps, I will allow myself to grieve.”

She watched Isaam, who went down on his hands and knees at the base of a dying oak. The sorcerer began to speak in a sing-song pattern from a language Bera guessed was old and magical. She squinted, thinking she saw the earth crack around Isaam’s fingers. She looked closer, just as leaves fell from the oak, curling and drying up. More leaves fell as she watched. Isaam’s breath grew ragged.

“Drawing the life out of the woods,” Bera observed.

“Consider this in memory of your Zocci, Commander.”

“How far does your magic range, my old friend? As far south as the bluff, where the goblins are surely burning their dead? Is your enchantment that strong?” She pictured their funeral pyres. The wind continued to blow toward the river, so the stench traveled in the opposite direction, away from her nostrils. “I can’t smell their stink, but I can well imagine it. Will your magic stretch that far, my old friend?”

The sorcerer didn’t answer, the ancient words tumbling faster from his lips. He threw his head back, and Bera saw that his face was fuller, his eyes shining dark in the pale light. His lips were puffy, as if he took the moisture of the woods into himself. His hands looked fleshier. Or was that her imagination?

“To your last measure, Isaam. Until you’ve only a faint heartbeat left. Drink in the life of this accursed forest. And let it be the death of the damnable goblins that took Zocci and my men.”

Bera watched the sorcerer until the sky grew darker and the stars brighter. How long did she watch him? How long had they been there? An hour? More?

Her legs were stiff from standing still so long.

“They come!” She turned, startled.

She heard the call only faintly because of the distance Isaam had put between himself and the rest of her men.

The warning grew louder as other voices joined. “The goblins are coming for us!”

Bera ran back toward her camp.

THE KILLING WOODS

Isaam did not have the skills of a druid, which he judged considerable, and so the presence of a druid with the goblins bothered him. Was it a goblin? A hobgoblin that boasted nature magic? Or had the foul creatures found a human or an elf ally in the woods?

And if the latter was the case, was the druid so attuned to the Qualinesti Forest that alone he was a more formidable foe than all the goblins put together? Isaam remembered vividly the trees fighting the knights near the bluff. The trees were thicker in the knights’ camp and would pose a greater threat to the Dark Knights.

“To my last measure for Commander Kata,” he vowed silently.

Isaam’s enchantments were aimed at the druid, aimed at rending his nature magic useless.

“Let them all die for Commander Kata.”

Grallik N’sera was a nuisance compared to what a druid in the woods could do, so Isaam did not trouble himself over the traitorous Gray Robe.

Isaam struck at the greater threat, the druid, and therefore at the very forest itself. He would try to keep the druid neutralized and let Bera deal with the foul creatures that so vexed her. Let her find some joy in slaying them in great number.

To his last breath, he would help her.

The Qualinesti Forest was too vast for Isaam to take on in its entirety by himself, but his part of it … that perhaps he could manage. He could suck the life out of his little section.

If the trees in the area dried up and died, the druid would be hard pressed to animate them and could scarcely use the withered limbs to whip at the knights. If the grasses and moss that covered the forest floor became brittle, the druid couldn’t effectively use them to trip or entangle the Dark Knights.

“Death to these woods.”

Isaam embraced the darkest of magics, “death magic,” as some referred to it. He preferred to call it necromancy, liking the sound of the word on his tongue. It had taken a great deal of effort to pull the life from that section of the Qualinesti Forest with his spells, and at the same time the enchantment refreshed him. In enervating the plants, he took their life essence into himself and felt somehow stronger.

When he stood, he no longer felt stiff from kneeling so long. When he rolled his shoulders, he felt invigorated, as if years had melted off his thin frame. But that was only the physical effect, and it would not last long. Mentally, he’d exhausted himself. And his next piece of magic would truly tax him.

Isaam had well heard the warnings: first Lieutenant Doleman shouting that the goblins were coming then other voices and commotion. He knew Bera was readying the men and spreading them out. She would be furious and desperate, railing against the thought that her plan to take the fight to the goblins had been nipped in the bud.

“But you will not fail in the end, Commander,” Isaam whispered. He leaned against the dead oak, the first tree he’d killed with his spell. He called another enchantment forth from the recesses of his labyrinthine mind and let it flow to his fingers then into the dead tree. When the bark grew warm to the touch, he stepped to another tree and did the same then moved to another.

Isaam watched an ember spark to life on the first dead oak, initially looking like a firefly had landed there with its tiny light blinking to its fellows. The oak had become so dry that the magical ember quickly blossomed and others appeared around it. His firefly was indeed calling more to join it.

The sorcerer had detested the march through the Qualinesti Forest, but he’d paid attention along the way. The forest was vibrant, except where he’d just spread his withering touch. Fires were common in the dry, wooded sections of Neraka in the hot summers; the slightest spark set them off. People in Neraka wisely built homes and settlements away from the woods, not wanting to lose their worldly possessions, and perhaps their lives, to raging forest fires. No doubt the Qualinesti Forest boasted its share of fires too, though the place was not so brittle and dry as the woods in summer in his beloved Neraka.

“Burn,” Isaam coaxed. “Burn for Bera Kata.”

Small flames licked up the trunk and toward the upper branches. More flames traveled down to the forest floor, looking like liquid flowing toward all the dead leaves the tree had dropped.

“Let this forest be so much kindling for my magic.” Isaam smiled and wished Bera were there to witness his pleasure.

The fire crawled to the second tree Isaam had touched, smoke spiraling up like artfully curled ribbons as it rose. So many leaves had dropped from Isaam’s enchantment that there was plenty of detritus for the fire to feed on. Then his fire rushed to a third tree and a fourth-more and more.

Satisfied, he hurried to the north, where Bera’s men waited, and he glanced up at the forest canopy as he went. The fire had reached the first oak’s crown and had started to spread through the heights. It was moving faster than he had expected.

“Magnificent.”

The sorcerer heard the men in the distance calling “Fire! Fire!” Someone with a loud, shrill voice, one of Bera’s female lieutenants, shouted “Goblins!” The different shouts mingled.

The fire at the top of the oaks rode the wind south to the next tree and the next, dancing faster than someone on the ground could outrun it. The flames spread east too, and Isaam knew the goblins would find themselves under the fire soon-if they weren’t trapped already. His magic would spread panic, kill and diminish their numbers, and give the Dark Knights the edge.

He cast another spell, adding to his mental fatigue. The enchantment caused him to float above the ground, higher and higher until he was above the topmost canopy. Then he willed himself to stop. Floating there, he watched his dazzling fire jump. Sometimes it cleared a tree, sparing one on some capricious whim, only to catch the next one to the south and engulf it with a roar. The woods were so dry because he’d drained the life and the water. The trees easily accepted the fire.

The druid could do nothing to aid the goblins. No one could stop Isaam’s magic.

The wind blew stronger up in the treetops, no thick trunks to slow it down. Each gust set another section of the forest canopy on fire. In one place the fire jumped a quarter mile, he guessed, embers borne by the swift breeze, hurtling across a stream. The edges of the stream burned. Nothing Isaam’s magic touched was safe.

He heard shouts; they were faint, a fair distance away. The cries sounded pitiful. His fire had indeed found the goblins.

“Burn,” he hissed. “You like to burn the corpses of your dead. Let the forest you ran to be your funeral pyre.”

A fire whirlwind lit the sky, a column of flame Isaam suspected had come from Grallik-a feeble attempt to snuff out the main fire. But there was no main fire. Fire was everywhere.

“An ineffectual attempt. Your magic was always beneath mine, Grallik N’sera. Your rank as well.” The sneering Isaam floated a little higher and drew his robes tighter around him to cut the slight chill of the night breeze. The fire did not warm him.

The flames spreading to the west were erratic and a little unpredictable, encountering trees that hadn’t been kissed by Isaam’s draining spell. They put up a fight, but the fire was too strong to be denied. Isaam suspected the druid was in anguish and working diligently to figure out how to neutralize his spell … but Isaam’s magic was superior and spreading.

Birds shot into the air by the hundreds, squawking so loud that they briefly drowned out the whoosh and crackling flames of Isaam’s great creation. But they were gone quickly, in search of a safer part of the forest. The animals trapped on the ground would not be so fortunate. The fire was moving too fast for escape.

A dense cloud of fiery embers pushed to the south just ahead of the flames that were swallowing one tree after the next. The fire was taking a firm hold in the peat soil too and would be spreading across the ground, though it would move slower there as the wind couldn’t help spread it.

“Burn well and wildly, my creation.”

He could hear the goblin shouts easily-louder, clearer, closer. And though he couldn’t understand the language, he could well translate their terror. Bera was right; they did sound like wild dogs yowling.

A haze formed over the upper canopy from all the smoke and the wind that continued to agitate the fire. It reminded Isaam of fog hanging over pastures on early spring mornings. There was something beautiful and otherworldly about it. He stared proudly at his creation for several long moments.

Even though he was above it all, his eyes were watering and his mouth felt dry from the effects of the fire. Isaam didn’t mind the uncomfortable sensations, though. They spoke to his magic’s success. He took a deep breath of the sulfurous air.

Likely when the fire finally died down, they would find only goblin bones. They could well turn everything to ash-bones and ash.

“As hot as the Abyss, that blessed fire must be.” Isaam swelled with pride. He floated a little farther east and north, spotting the knights below. They fought goblins and hobgoblins that must have broken into the Dark Knights’ camp right before the fire struck. There’d been no flames to keep that group of foul creatures back. But that was a fortunate thing, he decided. “Let Bera have some fun. It will keep her mind off Zocci.”

The fire would keep all the rest of the goblins and hobgoblins at bay-the thousands that had no doubt been streaming toward the Dark Knights. The fire would slay all of the stinking rats for Bera.

The light from the fire made it easy for Isaam to pick out details on the ground below. In the front rank, Bera fought madly, parrying attacks from two goblins that looked to have some skill with knives. Her fighting form was never better, he thought.

Isaam drifted lower for a better look. He could aid her with a simple spell or two, make her blade sharper and her arm stronger, or he could give her more energy so she could fight faster. But Bera might not appreciate either of those spells. So instead he used his magic to lock the image of her battling into his mind. Then he could retell tales of her bravery with perfect clarity later, reporting to the Dark Knight Counsel that would want to hear about the mission. He would use spells to replay the most vivid parts, and he would make Bera shine. She could gain the promotion she’d been dreaming of.

FIGHTING WITH FIRE

On the forest floor, Bera was coughing hard with each swing of her sword. Her eyes stung so badly that tears streamed down her face. Her men fared the same, but all of them fared better than the goblins and hobgoblins who were closer to the fire.

“It’s Isaam’s doing no doubt, this great blaze,” Doleman said.

“Aye, Lieutenant. I’d told him to cast some spells that would trouble the rats.”

“But you didn’t expect this business, eh, Commander?” He forced a smile as he drew his sword over his head, two hands on the pommel, and brought it down hard on the collarbone of a tall, red-skinned goblin. The blade sliced through the flesh and broke the bone. The goblin crumpled and Doleman drove the point through its heart.

“I had not anticipated help to this extent,” she replied wryly.

“Unfortunate the Gray Robe had not thought of this earlier,” Doleman continued. “It would have cut our losses by the bluff.” He tugged his shield free from his back and wielded his sword with one hand.

Bera parried another blow. The goblins in front of her changed the rhythm of their attack, and she used that to her advantage, bringing the sword down on one’s wrist, cleaving through the arm and sending the creature away, howling and holding its blood-spurting stump. While the other goblin glanced at its wounded kinsman, she drove her blade through its throat and brought her heel against its stomach to help free her weapon.

“I did not order Isaam to cast such fire magics then, Lieutenant. At the bluff I was expecting a straight-up battle.” In truth, she hadn’t realized the sorcerer might be capable of such a magnificent gesture. And she had been determined to take the goblins down with brute force rather than even consider magic. “This mission rests on me. Only my head, you hear?”

“At least the wind is cooperating, Commander. It keeps most of these rats at bay. We’ve only a few hundred here to kill.”

That was both good and bad news as far as Bera was concerned. It was good that goblins were burning to death in the woods; in the distance. She could hear their screams and smell the stench of their roasting flesh.

But still, it was unfortunate that they were not dying by her own hand.

“For Zocci,” she whispered as she engaged a hobgoblin she’d spotted by the bluff earlier. One of its shoulders was lower than the other, and it moved with a pronounced limp. It wielded a crude spear that splintered when she struck it with her sword. “Pity you are not a more worthy foe,” she muttered as she shoved her blade through its stomach then raised her foot to push it off the weapon. The creature fell back onto an approaching goblin.

Goblins to her right shouted a horrid-sounding battle cry she couldn’t translate. Their strangled voices mingled with the clang of steel and the crackling flames. The air was hot to breathe and singed her lungs.

But Bera raged as hot as the fire.

She’d been weary after the failed strike on the bluff and their subsequent retreat, her arms and legs sore, and her neck stiff with a bothersome ache. But fighting with her hated foes somehow refreshed her; fresh power went into each swing. Not one man in her army-not one living man since Zocci was dead-was her equal in combat. She exulted in the moment.

Her husband had once told her that she lived to fight and that her bloodlust was stronger than her love for him or their daughter. She’d denied it, of course, though both of them knew he spoke the truth. Bera was born for battle. On another occasion he’d said she came into the world too late, that she would have been better suited to legendary challenges of the War of the Lance. She’d agreed with him then, saying those skirmishes were reportedly faster and deadlier than those of recent memory, and the stakes were in many respects higher.

The stakes were high for the battle that raged in the forest, though.

Flames snapped and popped all around her. The air was filled with burning flesh and trees. What would her husband think of her at that very moment, flailing away at goblins in the heart of the burning Qualinesti Forest? Would he be proud? Would she ever tell him her heart had been broken with Zocci’s death?

Another hobgoblin charged in, wearing a breastplate that looked like it had been cobbled together from multiple mismatched suits of chain and leather armor. Almost comical in its appearance, the hobgoblin nevertheless protected itself from her first swing. It grinned at her, drool spilling over its lower lip, the creature looking wet and slimy in the firelight.

“You disgust me,” she spit. “All of your kind.”

She swung higher, forcing the hobgoblin to parry her thrusts and giving it no chance to launch an attack of its own. Then she made a move to swing higher still, aiming for its big head. As it brought its own blade up, she dropped to a crouch and angled her sword up like a lance, skewering it in a gap she’d noticed between the uneven segments of chain mail. She faintly heard the sound of her blade grating against its ribs.

Her husband would understand her blood lust, she thought. He’d been a Dark Knight once, in the very early years of their marriage. But he’d injured his leg in a fight with a pair of young Solamnics, and though he’d slain them, one had managed a severe blow. The Skull Knights healed him but could not properly set his leg on the battlefield. He’d retired to raise their daughter.

Bera thought rarely of her daughter, a beautiful woman with her eyes set in her father’s face and with aspirations for only marrying well and raising a family. The girl had never shown an interest in the Order; perhaps that was why Bera had given back so little interest or affection. But when the fight was through and the necessary reports made to those above her, perhaps Bera would go home to visit the girl-woman, she corrected herself. Time was fast and elusive. She would visit her husband and daughter, who she hoped had found a man to marry and provide for her. Then she would look to her next posting and perhaps a coveted promotion.

“Commander!” Doleman shouted a second time to get her attention.

He’d been wounded, though not seriously, a slice on his upper sword arm. Bera moved closer to give him cover as he switched his sword to his left hand and transferred his shield to his right.

“My thanks, Commander.”

“Slaying another goblin would be thanks enough,” she returned.

He nodded and bull-rushed forward, his shield knocking down a goblin as he raised his sword and brought it down at an angle to sever the leg of another opponent. The one on the ground scrambled to rise again, but Doleman jumped on top of him, heel digging into the goblin’s neck and crushing and strangling him.

“Debt paid, Commander!”

“Aye, Lieutenant.” She turned to encounter a large goblin preparing to attack her. The creature wielded a club in its right hand and a wavy-bladed dagger in its left. More disgusting than its fellows, the goblin had two miniature heads hanging from its belt. They bobbed against its legs as it darted forward.

Elf heads, she realized with a start. Bera had studied goblins and knew there were sects that took trophies, such as hands and heads. She’d read about a tribe that shrunk the skin, believing it captured the spirit of the enemy. The visual proof of that legend gave her one more reason to despise goblinkind.

“Filth,” she cursed at it. “A disease on the face of Ansalon.” She changed her pattern of attack, raining blows down in a staccato fashion until the head-toting goblin tried to stumble back. But there were goblins behind it, and it was blocked from retreat.

“A disease!” she hollered. “And I am the cure.” She ran it through. Her heart sang with joy, and she whirled to find her next opponent, her next hated enemy, another treat for her sword.

AN UNANSWERED CRY FOR HELP

Graytoes was at the rear of the goblin throng. She could have stayed on the bluff. Should have, maybe, she thought. Younglings were gathered there, watched over by the oldest goblins and hobgoblins who were deemed too fragile or too wounded from the previous battle to fight. She could have helped them.

Perhaps she should have stayed to take care of Umay, to keep her out of danger; Direfang had told her to stay. Orvago had stayed. She’d heard the gnoll tell Direfang that he was better at protecting and defending and healing. It was not his place to go on the attack.

“My nature will not allow me to pick sides, Foreman Direfang,” he’d said. “But I will fight to save these goblins on the bluff. I will stay here and do my best to hold the bluff.”

Graytoes could have stayed with Orvago. Horace had stayed too. The Skull Man was broken and resting, tending wounded goblins when he’d briefly revive. Horace wasn’t a Dark Knight any longer, so Graytoes decided that she could finally like him. Graytoes could have stayed with Horace and helped with the wounded.

But Graytoes was curious above all else, and in truth she prided herself on being part of Direfang’s army. With Umay strapped to her back in the leather pack, she still could use her hands to fight well. She carried a long knife in one; she thought it was the weapon Direfang had dropped after gaining the magnificent axe. Because it had been Direfang’s, she knew it was fine and strong and would be enough to protect her and Umay.

Jando-Jando had gone ahead of her and was probably very near the front of the war party. She worried he might fall to a Dark Knight. Jando-Jando was not as good a fighter as she. Graytoes didn’t love him like she’d loved Moon-eye, though she thought perhaps with time she might. But Graytoes didn’t want to be without a mate again, which was the main reason she followed the thousands of goblins through the woods, looking for Jando-Jando. She thought that if she were near him during the fighting, he wouldn’t die. She’d not been near Moon-eye when he’d died. Watching over Jando-Jando would give her some purpose. And it was an excuse not to remain on the bluff.

Besides, there was a little magic in her, and she could join it with Draath’s and maybe Olag’s if she could find them in the melee. She wished Thya and Mudwort had not left the city. Their magic was very strong, and it was easier to mingle her magic with theirs. The female stonetellers brought out the best in Graytoes.

Mudwort, especially, made the magic simple. But Draath was good too, she thought. She didn’t like to look at the tiny elf heads strapped to his belt, and she didn’t want to touch his fingers; she pictured them pulling the skin loose from elf skulls. But she could work some spells with Draath when she closed her eyes. Together, they could help defeat the knights and thereby help Direfang. Graytoes hated Dark Knights more than she hated anything else. She hoped there were a few elves among the enemy so Draath and Sallor and their kinsmen could add to their disgusting collection. But she would not watch them do it.

Umay slept blithely, despite Graytoes’s rushing over uneven ground, jumping knobby roots, and sometimes being jostled by goblins who raced near her and faster and occasionally pushed her out of the way. Umay slept although she was probably hungry. In all the confusion and activity, Graytoes hadn’t fed her.

“Win for Umay,” Graytoes told herself. “Beat the Dark Knights. Kill all Dark Knights. Then go back and milk a goat and feed Umay. Bathe Umay, and sing an old song Moon-eye liked.”

Graytoes liked the forest, despite the bloodragers and the dragon and other dangers, and she wanted Umay to grow up in the nice, green place. Not on the bluff, though; there’d been too much death there. The ground was tainted with all the blood from dead goblins and Dark Knights. Nothing good could grow on such terribly tainted ground. Graytoes decided that after all the Dark Knights were dead, she would have a long talk with Direfang. The goblins must build a city somewhere else. Along that same river, fine, but somewhere else, not within sight of the tainted ground.

She would build a fine earth bowl home with Jando-Jando, one better than even what Mudwort had made. She could use her own magic to do the digging, and together they’d make it a large home so Umay would have lots of room to grow up in. Maybe they would put a wall inside of it, dividing up the space, the kind of innovation that Qel was rumored to have in her home. Then Umay could have her own space when she got a little bigger.

“Graytoes loves Umay very much,” she said.

Graytoes had been running for a while before she noticed things changing around her. Ground animals were scampering through goblin legs, all of them racing in the opposite direction, toward the south, tripping over each other and exposed roots-running for the sake of running, she thought. Larger animals-deer and boars and maybe bigger things by the thrashing-also rushed through the woods. All of them hurried away from where the goblins headed. Maybe they were afraid of the coming confrontation. Maybe the battle ahead was too fierce.

But Graytoes quickly realized they were afraid of something worse. She well knew what fire smelled like; she’d been around plenty of goblin funeral pyres in the past weeks and had smelled the fire spewed by the volcanoes when they escaped from Steel Town. And she’d been close enough to Grallik’s fire spells plenty of times. Something in the forest was burning, and it had frightened the animals and was frightening her too. But the goblins running ahead and all around her had not turned back toward the bluff; they still charged after Direfang.

“What to do, Umay? What to do?” Graytoes fell behind. She watched the others ahead of her weave through the trunks and underbrush, weapons on their belts thunking against their thighs, their feet slapping against the ground.

The ground felt drier than it had before. Graytoes had never cared for shoes; her calloused feet were tough enough for any terrain, but the ground was parched. The air was drier too and carried the fire scent. Wood burned. The forest cried for water. Looking up, she thought she saw the edges of a cloud stretching over her. But it wasn’t a rain cloud; the cloud was smoke.

Graytoes dropped to her knees, jarring Umay and waking her. The baby made a cooing sound and wriggled slightly in the pack. “Not much magic inside this heart, but maybe there is just enough.” Graytoes thrust her fingers into the desiccated ground, remembering everything Mudwort had taught her. “Must warn Orvago about the fire. Orvago must get the younglings to safety.” If nothing else, the druid could invoke rain and put out the fire, she thought.

Her senses raced through the earth and found their way back to the bluff. She felt the goblin bodies on the hard ground there-sitting, resting, sleeping, the younglings playing. All of them were oblivious to the coming threat. Their forms felt like a pressing weight against her senses and made it more difficult for her to breathe. She felt a greater weight then, and knew it was either a hobgoblin or Orvago. The gnoll, she decided, as she tried to mentally communicate with him.

“Orvago, please listen. Danger comes. Listen.”

Graytoes tried harder than she ever had before with the magic, but nothing worked or felt right. When she got no response from the gnoll, she tried to talk to the goblins and hobgoblins there, but none of them were stonetellers, so they couldn’t hear her call. Not even Horace could hear her; his was not the right kind of magic. She felt him sleeping on the ground, and not even her mental shouts could wake him.

“Mudwort.” Mudwort had to be somewhere in the woods. “And Thya.” They were so magical that they would respond to her pitiful efforts and come to help. And if they were too far away and couldn’t come fast enough to help, she could warn them about the fire so at least they could be safe. She sent her mind searching to the west then to the north. She felt the thousands of goblin feet; Direfang’s army was approaching the Dark Knights. They couldn’t be oblivious to the fire, could they? Was the worst of the fire behind the ones in front, was that it?

“Be fast.” It was a cry that often accompanied the goblins into a fight. “Be fast.” But she used it to spur her senses on.

Soon she was flying past the goblins and the knights-who felt much heavier on the earth-and speeding over the north and west, going back and forth, trying to scout two directions at the same time. “Thya! Mudwort!” Maybe one of them could use her mental-magic to reach Orvago and Horace and warn them. Mudwort and Thya had more magic than she did. Maybe they could even do something to help the goblins against the Dark Knights. And maybe they could do something about the spreading fire.

The fire was spreading quickly, like an angry, ravenous beast-a thing bigger than the dragon that had ruined Direfang’s city.

“Mudwort, listen. Please, please, be listening to the stone.” Graytoes thought for a moment she had managed to find and touch the red-skinned goblin’s mind. Something felt familiar. “Mudwort?” Familiar, yet different. “Mudwort, help.” When there was no answer, she spiraled away, looking for Thya, calling out a warning to every living creature she sensed, hoping one or more of them were stonetellers and could hear her.

Graytoes continued her call until the sound of goblin feet intruded. Like muted thunder, the marching feet signaled her defeat; her mind had drifted back to the forest, to the goblins rushing toward her, to the fire spreading all around. She pulled her fingers out of the earth and hid behind a thick-trunked oak so Umay would not get trampled by the retreating army of goblins and hobgoblins. The baby continued to coo happily.

The cloud of smoke overhead was thicker and darker and was well beyond her ability to cope; it was like a roof that kept out the good air and forced her and Umay to breathe the burned, hot air that, like everything else, called out for water.

The fire traveled faster than the goblins possibly could, she realized. Birds shot like arrows through the smoke and to the south-all kinds and sizes, all squawking with terror.

“Time to join Orvago and hope for Jando-Jando,” Graytoes said to herself apprehensively. “Time for Umay to be safe.” She thought about the river. She could go down the bluff and stay at the muddy river’s edge. Water stopped fire so maybe her baby would be all right there. That’s just where she would go.

Graytoes waited until there was a gap in the panicked mob of goblins. She darted into the gap and ran as fast as she could along with the others. Little ground animals continued their mad dash, some weaving in and out around goblin legs, others hurtling parallel to the widening trail the goblins had created.

“Faster!” she heard someone in front of her holler. “Faster! Fire!”

“Back to the bluff!” another called. “Be fast.”

Then with no warning, the goblins she was running with suddenly stopped in their tracks, skidding into each other, some falling and getting trampled. She nearly got knocked down.

Graytoes felt her heart rise into her dry, choked throat. The fire had jumped over the goblin army and was ahead of them! She looked ahead and behind and to the east and the west.

The fire was everywhere, and they were all going to die.

FIRESTORM

Direfang shoved his way to the front, raising his new axe high and bringing it down on the head of a Dark Knight. The axe blade shimmered in the light thrown from the flames. It glowed faintly blue, and when it struck the knight’s helmet, it parted the steel like parchment. The blade buried itself in the knight’s skull.

At his side, Nkunda cheered.

The fire raged behind the goblins, and Direfang knew only that hundreds were caught on their side of the blaze, maybe at best a thousand. They were caught but maybe safe from burning. A part of him worried about the rest, hoping fervently they were racing back to the bluff where the trees were thin and they would be safe, where they could jump in the river if they needed to.

Though the goblins there seemed equal in numbers to the force of knights, the hobgoblin knew that their foes were better trained and more skilled and better armored. More goblins were dropping than knights. He and his fellows might die that night.

“But die free,” he said with a grunt.

Direfang’s vision was keen, but the haze from the fire made it difficult to see much farther than the first several ranks of knights in front of him. The wind blew toward him, which helped to clear some of the air, but it only caused him to worry more about the goblins behind the fire line. How fast was it spreading? Were all the goblins caught in the fire and being burned?

Grallik had made it through close to Direfang, the wizard bringing down repeated gouts of flame and conjuring walls of fire in an effort to neutralize the massive blaze. But nothing was working, Direfang realized, and he watched as the wizard turned his attention to fighting the knights instead of the fire.

“There is the traitor!”

Direfang heard a woman’s shrill voice cut above the fray.

“There is Grallik N’sera. He is mine! Do you hear? All of you? The traitor is mine to kill!”

The hobgoblin caught sight of her, the female Dark Knight, her face soot streaked and her hair slick against the sides of her head. She’d lost her helmet in the battle, and the shield she carried was dented and looked old. She looked worn, but she fought with a fury that surpassed the knights around her. She was the fearsome commander Grallik had told him about.

She was his.

Had she started the fire? Was she to blame for all the death and destruction?

Direfang struggled toward her, slashing at enemy soldiers who lunged at him, trying hard to keep the female knight in focus. The fire was too loud, whooshing at intervals and sending explosions of smoke in all directions. The very air was dying.

Weapons clanged against each other and against the Dark Knight shields. Out of the corner of his eye, Direfang spotted a hobgoblin as he stabbed a knight and grabbed up the man’s shield, charging into the next knight in line and knocking him down. A burly knight vaulted in front of Direfang, startling him.

“This one has Zoccinder’s axe, Commander! I think he’s the one that killed Zoccinder.”

“Gold to the man who brings me the murderer’s head!”

Direfang slashed with the axe, cutting into the stupid knight’s breastplate. The knight didn’t die immediately, and the hobgoblin had to yank hard to pull the axe free to strike again and again. Finally, the man fell, blood dribbling from his mouth, and Direfang walked over him to confront another one.

The woman would be his.

She’d brought the men to the forest, dogged the goblins from the Nerakan mountains to the shore of the Newsea, and followed them to Schallsea Island, where she had taken Horace.

Brought hell to his forest and his city!

She was a worse enemy than the bloodragers and the dragon, and the tylor the goblins had fought so long, long in the past. She was worse than the earthquakes and the volcanoes, for Direfang hadn’t considered any of those things evil. But the commander? From yards away he felt pure evil emanating from her.

“Mine!” Direfang shouted, finally close enough to get a good look at her face. “The woman is mine to kill!”

The woman’s eyes burned as darkly bright as the woods, and spittle flew from her lips as she decapitated Keth and ran her blade through the belly of another goblin Direfang didn’t recognize.

Her lieutenants had fought to form a small circle around her. All the better, Direfang thought, because he could kill more Dark Knights on his way to killing her. The axe he gripped was a fine weapon, filled with magic and with an edge so sharp that nothing could stand up to it for long. Fate had handed him that axe, and he would use it kill knights to his last breath.

Direfang spotted little shards of light that sparkled in the fire’s glow and melted through the breast plate of one knight after another, sending some knights tumbling to the forest floor, clutching their chests, where they were easier targets for the goblins. Grallik was continuing to cast his little spells, he realized. They were not as flashy as the columns of flame that Grallik specialized in, but they were more effective given the circumstances. The big fire couldn’t be stopped anyway.

“Die!” a Flamegrass clansman screamed in the common tongue. “Die this night!”

“Be fast! Be deadly!” others shouted, both in the common tongue and in goblinspeak. Direfang knew the goblins wanted the knights to understand and fear their words. “Be fast! Kill fast!”

The chants swelled and Direfang’s arm pumped faster. His hand was slick with blood running down the blade and the haft of his weapon. More blood was spattered against his face, and he had to blink and wipe his eyes constantly to clear his vision.

A knight slipped up to his side while he was distracted by a female knight struggling with two goblins. Direfang felt the knight’s blade cut through to a rib, feeling a sharp pain but a pain that was nothing to him. He was too angry and desperate, too determined to be slowed or humbled by pain. He spun, bringing the axe down on the outstretched arm of his attacker, slicing his arm off and turning back to another foe.

The axe possessed serious magic! Direfang felt the haft tingle each time the blade connected with flesh. A fine, fine weapon; he brought it back over his head as if he were going to chop at a stump, then shifted it down and in an arc, slicing off another knight’s arm and kicking him in the stomach to send him toppling back before moving on to the next. Behind Direfang, goblins swarmed the knights falling to Grallik’s spell.

Grallik sent more light shards into the many knights surrounding Direfang, cutting some down among the shield wall that protected the commander, lessening her defenses.

“The woman is mine!” Direfang cried over his shoulder. “Do you hear, Gray Robe? Grallik, no spells upon that fiend! The woman is mine to kill!”

If Grallik heard, he didn’t answer. But Direfang saw the wizard was busy casting another spell, bringing down a familiar column of flame on knights coming up from the rear.

“There is enough fire!” Direfang shouted.

“Again, Grallik!” one of the goblins yelled, contradicting the hobgoblin leader. “Do that again and again and again.”

Direfang coughed deeper as he engaged the next knight, one clearly wary of his axe. The hobgoblin’s lungs ached from the heat, his throat and mouth desert-dry, and his eyes stinging horribly.

“Blind before this is through,” Direfang muttered.

A goblin dropped at his side but not from a physical blow from a knight. The air was becoming impossible to breathe. Another fell shortly thereafter, clutching his throat and gasping.

“Be fast!” came a strangled cry from behind Direfang.

“The fire has jumped!” That was a knight’s voice, a human who stood only a few paces ahead of Direfang. “Commander, we are going to be trapped. The wind has shifted, and we are caught!”

“Then we’ll die here!” she returned, her voice carrying to Direfang’s ears. “But not before we kill as many as we can. I’ll gladly die to Isaam’s fire before I’ll die to a goblin.”

Her evil was indeed palpable, Direfang thought.

At the most a thousand goblins were on the wrong side of the wall of flame, Direfang knew. He doubted there were that many. That meant most goblins had retreated through the burning forest.

Had they all gotten away? Were they safe at the bluff? Had they thought to retreat to the river? Were Orvago and Horace tending those hurt by the flames? Was Graytoes all right?

“Stop it,” he told himself angrily. Stop thinking about everyone except the Dark Knight woman, he admonished himself. “Be fast. Be deadly. Kill the woman before the flames do.” He counted only three knights standing between his axe and her.

On the bluff, Orvago brought down as much rain as he could manage to conjure. He had drained himself of his nature magic to the point he could no longer stand. He went down on his knees. Goblins huddled around him, all soaking wet and shivering from fear. Some of them begged him to bring down a bigger storm to put out the fire that raged in the forest and was coming toward them.

Horace was ministering to those who’d been burned and who’d managed to make it back through the woods. He listened to their tales of the fire and realized the Dark Knights must have started the inferno that threatened to kill all on both sides.

“If the Dark Knight swords cannot kill all the clans,” one of the goblins told him. “Then the fire will kill all.”

Goblins streamed over the bluff and toward the river, despite Orvago and Horace yelling at them to climb to higher ground.

The river wouldn’t save them, the gnoll decided. The fire had already jumped the body of water and had caught in the small pines on both sides. The river might provide some temporary refuge, but soon the air would be filled with so much poisonous smoke that it would choke the life out of everything. And most of the goblins and hobgoblins could not swim for long anyway.

“I realize now why the old willow tree had been so worried,” Orvago murmured.

“I don’t understand.” But Horace was too busy to ask for an explanation. His healing hands weaved over another burned goblin.

“Chislev,” Orvago began. “Hear this prayer.”

“Sea Mother,” Horace echoed, his voice stronger and deeper than the gnoll’s, “Zeboim, mother goddess, she who is called Zebir Jotun, Zura the Maelstrom, and Zyr. Hear me.”

“Qel was right, Umay.” Graytoes sat against the base of a poplar, the dwarf baby cradled in front of her, gasping and sputtering. “Should not have taken Umay from that village. Should have left Umay there. Safe with dwarves maybe. Safer than here.”

There was nowhere to run, no safe place in that section of the forest. Trees burned everywhere, behind her, around her, and ahead of her toward the bluff.

The bluff was no safer, she realized.

In a detached way, Graytoes found the flames strangely beautiful-yellow, orange, red, white, magical in their brightness and intensity, pieces of flames shining like metal, all of it beautiful yet horrible.

“Umay would have lived well in that village. Would have grown strong and wonderful. Would not have been loved by Graytoes anymore, though, if left behind. And Graytoes does love Umay.” Graytoes twirled her fingers in the baby’s black hair. Umay’s breath came in shallow puffs. “Should not have stolen Umay. Qel was right. S’dard to have stolen beautiful Umay.”

Above the forest, watching all the beautiful, horrible fire he had wrought, Isaam stared in horror. He hadn’t counted on the wind shifting and the fire jumping to trees behind the knights. His magical shield was holding against the flames to the south, protecting Bera from the fire spreading in that direction, but he hadn’t the ability to protect her from the east and west, as the fire spread out of control. The Dark Knight leaders-and some of the goblins and hobgoblins-were in a clearing surrounded by the inferno.

Bera was there in the middle of it all, Isaam saw.

He would miss Bera, but he had no way to save her. He could not risk floating down to reach her, the smoke was so thick that he himself might perish. He could start but not stop the fire.

At least the enemy druid-wherever he was-could not help the goblins. Isaam had dried out the forest and saw to that. Isaam would mourn his gallant commander, certainly. And he’d tell those higher up in the Order that she’d accomplished her mission-slaying the goblins she’d been sent after. She’d killed them all and didn’t retreat despite a fire that rose all around her.

The traitor Grallik N’sera was to blame for the demise of Bera and the rest of the knights, Isaam would report. Grallik’s specialty was fire magic; it was well documented in his records. Grallik had brought down a column of flame in a part of the woods that was especially dry. Yes, Grallik started the firestorm and perished in it, causing the deaths of Bera and the rest of her knights. That was what Isaam would tell the council.

Only he had been able to escape, he would tell them, and only because he had a spell that allowed him to float above the earth. The spell did not allow him to carry the weight of another.

Bera would receive posthumous honors.

Isaam would miss her more than a little; he had served with her a long while. She was a brave commander, though doomed.

Isaam floated east, flying higher to avoid the flames and the smoke that continued to shoot toward the cloudless sky.

MUDWORT’S REFUSAL

Mudwort heard Graytoes’s call, amazed that the yellow-skinned goblin could accomplish such stone-telling on her own. Perhaps she’d underestimated Graytoes. Or perhaps Graytoes had found a great well of magic inside in a moment of desperation.

Mudwort was well aware that a portion of the great Qualinesti Forest was burning but not all of the forest. The red-skinned goblin had ranged far to the north and was off by the coast. She was safe from the flames and the smoke. She couldn’t see or smell them, and she was glad she couldn’t.

She knew the forest burned only because when she touched the end of the spear to the earth, she could peer through the ground effortlessly. It no longer required a spell. Her magic was growing. She’d chanced to look in on Direfang moments past. Her vision of their first meeting in the Dark Knight mines had made her curious about his well-being.

That’s when she’d noticed the flames and taken in the scope of the firestorm. Doom was enveloping the goblins and their hobgoblin leader.

Mudwort would miss Direfang above all the others she’d left behind, and perhaps she would miss Graytoes too. But she was too far away to save them, and it was none of her business anymore.

She hoped they died quickly and without much pain and that the winds scattered their ashes and bones so nothing touched. She did not want their spirits returning to be trapped forever.

“Direfang is remembered,” Mudwort mused. “Direfang was a good, good friend.”

Within minutes she felt sand beneath her feet. She’d reached the beach. She liked the feel of it and let her toes sink in. Every sensation felt more intense to her. Mudwort knew it was because of the magical spear; it had heightened everything-her ability to stonetell, her spells, her hearing and sight and all her senses. It would take quite some time to discover all the magic inside of the god-tossed-away weapon.

Mudwort heard voices again, the rustling leaves to the east talking to her, crying out to her. “The forest aches,” they said. “The forest bleeds and dies. The forest hurts.”

“Only a part of the forest,” Mudwort returned contemptuously. “And only for a while.” She remembered looking at the young pines on the opposite side of the old, muddy river. “The forest will be born again. Maybe better. The forest will not be dead for long.”

The leaves persisted, as did another voice.

“Saarh,” she murmured, recognizing the voice finally.

“Yes. Mudwort, do something.”

Mudwort shook her head so hard, her necklaces became tangled. She wore all she had, even the pretty one with all the sapphire stones she’d feared another goblin would take from her. She didn’t fear anything or anyone anymore.

“Mudwort, do something,” the voice repeated.

“Do nothing, Saarh. Shut up, Saarh.” Mudwort discovered shortly after leaving the clearing that Saarh, or the spirit of Saarh, was lodged inside the spear. That was why Mudwort hadn’t been able to see Saarh when she’d peered into the future; she saw only the spear. And that was because Saarh was inside the spear. There were other spirits in there, too, older ones, but none of them as interesting as Saarh. Mudwort didn’t listen to any of the others. She’d already explained to Saarh that there was nothing wrong in abandoning Direfang and his following. “Direfang will be born again, like the forest will be born again.”

Mudwort continued north, walking closer to the water so the voices of the leaves would be harder to hear, the surf drowning them out.

“Can’t do anything anyway,” Mudwort said after several more minutes had passed and Saarh had lapsed into brief silence. “Too far away. Too tired. Not enough magic inside. Too, too far away.”

“There is enough magic in the spear,” Saarh argued.

Mudwort wondered how and why Saarh had put herself inside the weapon-perhaps her means of achieving immortality. Mudwort also planned to live forever but not inside the spear.

“Mudwort’s treasure, this spear.” She liked the sound of that phrase. “Mudwort’s spear.”

“Chislev’s spear,” Saarh corrected.

Mudwort shook her head again, all the necklaces rattling.

“Chislev didn’t want it. Chislev forgot it. Chislev left it behind in the forest, and Saarh found it. Saarh-”

“-left it for Mudwort to find,” the old shaman returned.

“Chislev left it for Mudwort to find.”

“Chislev threw it away.”

“Chislev hid it,” Saarh corrected again. “Chislev brought Mudwort here to find it.”

“No.”

“And to use it to save the forest.”

“No.”

“And all the creatures in it.”

“Shut up, Saarh!” Mudwort slammed the end of the spear into the sand, but her mind instantly was flooded with images of burning trees and smoldering corpses of goblins and deer.

“Too far away, Saarh. Too far away to help. Mudwort refuses. Happy here.” Mudwort slammed the spear harder into the sand, thinking that might rattle Saarh and make her be quiet.

Mudwort was instantly surrounded by flames. “Mudwort refuses-”

“-to let the forest die,” Saarh finished.

Mudwort didn’t know if the spear had brought her into the heart of the burning woods or if she had done it of her own accord. Suddenly smoke crawled into her lungs and her feet blistered from the flames. She didn’t spy any living goblins, but there were husks here and there that once might have been goblins or men, blackened, curled things that smoldered and smoked and added to the unbearable, hot stench of the place.

She coughed and waved her free hand in front of her face.

“Mudwort refuses to let the forest die. Saarh knows Mudwort’s heart. Mudwort will not let Direfang die. Mudwort will not let-”

“Shut up, Saarh! Shut up! Shut! Up!”

Then Mudwort saw the fire as though she were a bird flying overhead. It was a massive blaze, all orange and red and gold with roiling clouds of black puffing away like the earth was a great furnace being stoked explosively. The image reminded her of the ore being smelted in Steel Town. “Hell Town,” the knights used to call it. The forest was worse: “Hell Forest.”

The fire was worse than the earthquakes and volcanoes, and though she wanted to ignore it or deny it, Mudwort knew that it was within her power-the spear’s power-to do something about it.

All chance, it was, she thought, that she would stumble across the spear in one of her earth visions and decide to pursue it. Chislev had nothing to do with it. Saarh played no part. It was all chance and Mudwort’s curiosity. There was no destiny or god involved. Her damnable curiosity.

But she was flying over the heart of the forest fire, so she might as well use the spear’s power and do something.

Mudwort imagined that the sky high above the forest was filled with rain clouds. There was nature magic in the spear and in her, and she could use both to get rid of the smoke and fire. She was choking on the smoke. She’d save herself, she thought.

“Just to save Mudwort.”

She felt instantly weak, as if she’d been punched in the stomach by a Dark Knight. She heard the fire roar all around her, and she heard rumbles and blasts of thunder. She felt the ground tremble and knew that it came from a bolt of lightning that had shot down from the clouds she had summoned.

“Save Mudwort.” She invested more energy into the storm she was creating and was rewarded when a raindrop struck her upturned face. “More,” she coaxed. “More and more.”

The sky opened up, and Mudwort felt as if she’d been punched again and again. The magic she used was that strong, draining.

“More.”

Direfang could hardly breathe, the air was so thick with smoke. His feet burned from a fire that had worked its way through the ground. It was difficult to make out the goblins still alive and fighting around him, much less those crumpled on the ground. Nkunda had fallen a few moments earlier, and Sallor had too. He’d not heard any recent whooshes from Grallik’s spells, so the wizard might be dead too. He could barely see the knights ahead of him.

Some of the knights had fallen from inhaling the smoke, some to goblins still fighting through the hellish firestorm, some to Grallik’s spells. The hobgoblin lumbered forward, tripping over a body and rising back up without registering whether it was a knight or one of his kinsmen he’d stumbled over.

“That one is mine!” Bera had spotted Direfang through the haze and charged toward him. “He killed Zocci. He is mine to kill!”

Direfang crouched to meet her. His knees nearly buckled when he took a deep breath and inhaled embers. He wanted to scream at her, but he’d lost his voice. He wanted to shout at her to leave the goblins alone, to let them have their freedom.

Instead he swung the axe with his fading strength. It still had its magic power. It sliced through her sword and continued on its deadly path, cleaving into her breastplate and dropping her. Her eyes froze as she reeled backward, amazed to have been bested by a stinking hobgoblin, amazed to be dying.

He tried to pull the axe free, but it was lodged too firmly and he was too weak. He fell next to her corpse and closed his eyes.

A moment later the incredible deluge began. Rain began to pummel the ground and drench the living and dead. Steam spiraled up from the earth, and Direfang opened his mouth and drank deeply.

“Should have left Umay in that village with those dwarves.” Graytoes’ face was streaked with tears. She sobbed and rocked back and forth, thinking about Moon-eye and Mudwort, Direfang and everyone who had been important in her short life. She refused to think about the hated Dark Knights, as she wanted her last thoughts to be only about the good things she had experienced-especially Umay. “Beautiful, beautiful Umay.”

She lifted the baby higher and kissed her forehead. She thought she saw Umay smile, but it might have been her mind going sour. The haze was too thick to properly see anything.

She held the baby close in one arm and stretched her free hand to the ground. It was so hot, she burned her fingers thrusting them into the earth. Graytoes thought she might brush Mudwort’s mind again, maybe tell her old friend good-bye.

She rocked the baby as she feebly sent her senses off toward Mudwort then crouched over Umay as the storm struck, the rain coming so hard at first that it was hurtful. Graytoes had never been in such a monstrous, horrible, wonderfully welcome storm. Surely there had never been such a powerful, violent, magnificent storm of life-saving rain!

For a moment Graytoes thought she’d found Mudwort, an image of the red-skinned goblin coming clearly in her mind and, strangely, not far away. But then the vision vanished, replaced with something that tugged at her curiosity, something magical and marvelous, something resting lightly on the earth, close.

Come find me, she thought the marvelous something said.

Through the hammering rain, Chislev’s spear called to her.

DIREFANG’S CITY

More than a thousand goblins, and all the Dark Knights, perished in the fire from what Direfang could tell. Grallik had survived, though barely. He was being treated by Horace on the bluff where the stone spire once stood. The wizard was scarred all over from fire, all of his skin looking wet with blisters, no doubt appearing hideous as far as men and elves were concerned. Because of that alone, Direfang knew the wizard would forever stay with the emerging goblin nation.

Maybe that was good, Direfang thought. The wizard had given so much of himself.

The hobgoblin had not been able to find Mudwort or Thya, the greatest of his band’s stonetellers. But Draath had survived, and the Skinweaver had vowed to teach promising younglings the art of working magic through the earth. Graytoes said she would help too. Jando-Jando stood behind her.

Direfang silently regarded the yellow-skinned goblin. Umay was tucked in a pack on her back, wrapped in a faded cloth with metallic threads in it. Graytoes leaned on a spear she said she’d found in the forest the night of the fire. It was a crooked wooden thing that was charred in places and from which dangled a couple of yellow and green feathers that appeared as if they’d just been plucked from a bird. When the light hit the spear just right-or when Direfang looked at it from an odd angle-the spear looked different, singular, dotted with gems and seeming to be straight and perfect and smooth. But that might be his mind teasing him, so he dismissed it from his thoughts. He had more important things to worry about than Graytoes’s spear.

The surviving goblin horde had decided to follow the river east, to where the forest met the base of the dwarf mountains.

They would build their new goblin city there, fashioning earth bowls like Mudwort had taught them and cutting down trees that Orvago would mark as best for building. Some would make their homes in nearby caves-those goblins who preferred the earth all around them. And if no caves could be found, Draath and the other stonetellers would fashion some. He hoped the dwarves would not take exception to the goblins’ presence.

More goblins would come, called through the earth. Graytoes said she intended to continue the calling. She also claimed that she would teach Umay how to stonetell, and that one day she would pass the old, crooked spear along to her dwarf daughter.

It would take a very long time, Direfang knew, to establish a firm foundation for the goblin nation. He would grow old and die before it was strong and a force to be feared and respected.

But it would happen; he was never sure before, but he knew in his heart that the goblin nation would be forged. “Finally free,” he said.

AFTERWORD

DEATH AND DISMEMBERMENT

Goblin Rituals Regarding the Hereafter

They burn their dead fellows, the goblins and hobgoblins of Neraka and the ogre mountains.

Burn them until the air is filled with a thick, hot stench that settles firmly in your mouth and permeates every thread of your body.

Burn them until nothing is left of the corpses but bits of bones, and those they scatter so nothing touches. The ashes are left to the wind.

I am Horace, a loyal priest of Zeboim, the Sea Mother, who joined a band of escaped goblin and hobgoblin slaves fleeing from the Dark Knight mining camp called Steel Town. A human, the goblins were loathe to accept me, and I did not mind that they kept their distance. I needed only their safety in numbers while we passed through the mountains and to better land. In exchange, I offered my healing skills.

I found the goblins’ funerary practices odd, so I studied them to discover what was behind the bizarre rituals. I am ever curious, and at the time, there was little other than goblins and their handling of the dead to occupy my attention. As their pyres burned, turning to ashes the corpses of those goblins and hobgoblins who died to old age, disease, and grievous injury from beasts they’d fought, I’d listen to the survivors elaborate on the dead.

“Lurker is remembered,” I recall a burly hobgoblin saying. “Lurker was kind, eating only roots and berries and not eating the meat of beasts. Lurker loved to watch the rabbits and ground squirrels, and wanted to save them rather than kill them. Lurker is remembered.”

“Calor is remembered,” another said. “Calor liked the darkness best. Calor thought the light showed too many ugly things. Calor slept when the sun was high so the ugliness was hidden. Calor is remembered.”

“Ren is remembered. Ren pulled the wings from butterflies and ate the tiny legs. Ren worked hard in the mines. Ren is remembered.”

“Stump-Arm is remembered. Stump-Arm was the strongest of the Marsh clan, able to drag two sacks of ore in one hand. Stump-Arm once wrestled a pig, but that was in the Before Time, when Stump-Arm was free. Stump-Arm will return to a good body now, one with two hands, and one that will grow to be even stronger. Stump-Arm is remembered.”

The goblins conduct the “memory” ceremony to let the spirits of the dead know they are revered and missed and that they are welcome to return to the earth. As long as someone is “remembered,” they are tied to their kin, one goblin explained. Those who are forgotten are more likely to drift.

My people bury their dead, under the earth or more often at sea so Zeboim can better embrace them. The Dark Knights in the mining camp put our brothers in polished armor and placed their swords atop their chests, fingers folded across the pommels. The dead are then ready to properly enter the world beyond.

My people believe there is a place where spirits dwell beyond this harsh, blood-soaked land, a place where they may meet the gods. But I discovered the goblins and hobgoblins of Neraka share no such belief. They claim to revere no gods, saying that Chislev and Zeboim and Reorx and the others did nothing to help the goblins and instead turned blind eyes to the injuries the goblins suffered in slavery.

They claim to need no higher beings. And they say they have no desire to mingle with them after death.

“The gods ignored goblins; let goblins ignore the gods,” the saying goes.

And yet they believe that their spirits persist when their bodies die. They believe their spirits return to the earth.

That is the reason behind the burning, I’ve learned. If a goblin corpse is burned and the bones separated, there is nothing the spirit can return to. The spirit must find another host-this being a child coming new into the world. A goblin or hobgoblin child to be specific, as they believe the spirits must return to a familiar form.

How they’ve come by this belief is a mystery. The goblins I’ve talked to have no explanation for it beyond saying it was passed down from fathers and grandfathers and the ancestors before that. There is no swaying them in this belief.

And against everything I have learned in my religious teaching, their arguments have some merit.

“How is it that goblins know instinctively which roots are tasty and not harmful?” Bent-Ear said to me. “Why do goblins know what mushrooms to eat without older goblins telling them? Why do goblins sleep with their backs to the rising sun?”

“How can hobgoblins tell if water is good or bad just by looking?” Direfang said. “It is because the old soul that lived in another body learned to tell the taint. The old soul in the new body remembers the look of the water.”

“How can goblins see through the earth? Call through the ground to kin?” the goblin shaman Mudwort argued. “No mentor taught such skills. Such goblins do not need schools and books and the trappings of Dark Knight wizards to hone their magic. Goblins need only to remember what the old soul inside them learned. The spirit does not forget, no matter the body the spirit has chosen to dwell inside. Instinct? There is no such thing, Horace of Zeboim, the Worthless God. It is the spirit’s past life coming to the fore. Goblin spirits return.”

I tried to give up on arguing and keep listening. I am a priest of Zeboim and do not want to be swayed away from my cherished god. But I could not yield my curiosity.

And if the bodies are not burned? I asked.

Mudwort said not all clans practice that, as she said some of them fear fire. But no clans leave the corpses intact if it can be helped. If a body is left intact for more than a day or two, the spirit can return to it, where the spirit will be trapped for eternity. It is tantamount to damnation to exist in such a shell.

Some clans of hobgoblins stake the corpses in fields, allowing small animals and insects to feast on the dead flesh. The bones are separated, when little flesh remains, broken, and scattered so the spirit must look elsewhere for a new shell.

One goblin clan of the plains uses the corpses to lure animals that can be caught and eaten. It is the dead serving the living, taking life from death, they say. The remaining goblin bones are not wasted, rather they are used as tools, the ribs often tied together with twine to make breastplates and shields.

The Marsh clan sinks the bodies, letting the fish and the water tug away the flesh and the water push the bones apart.

The Clan of the Dark Sunset hacks the corpses into pieces and feeds the bits to the livestock it keeps.

Some of the free Nerakan clans were known to toss the bodies of the dead into volcanoes.

At first I considered it all barbaric, but there is a practical side to the rituals … the dead do not take up space on the earth.

The goblins take care to bury the bodies of their most hated enemies-whether those be Dark Knights or ogres or minotaurs. They want the spirits to return to the rotting shells, to be forever trapped and miserable for an eternity. I learned they were quite pleased that the Dark Knights in Steel Town buried their dead; the goblins felt it proper that their hated foes condemned their own brothers’ spirits.

If I die in the company of these goblins and hobgoblins I travel with, will they bury me? Or will they care enough for the healing and scant fellowship I offered to toss my corpse onto their pyre?

Will I be remembered too? I wonder.

Content

Jean Rabe
Goblin Nation

RAGE OF BLOOD

DIREFANG’S MONUMENT

THERE WILL BE A CITY

LESSONS AND LOSS

DRAATH AND SALLOR

LESSONS AND LOSS

A STORM-TOSSED CITY

EARTH BOWLS

MUDWORT’S QUEST

BERA’S HEART

UMAY AND QEL

GOBLIN HUNTERS

WORRIED TREES

CONFLAGRATION

GREEN DEATH

MUDWORT’S ORDEAL

PREPARING FOR WAR

NO NEED TO FEAR THE DARK KNIGHTS

ONE HEALER LESS

THREE HUNDRED FEWER MOUTHS TO FEED

DEAD RECKONING

MUDWORT’S OBSESSION

DEAD SILENCE

A DARK KNIGHT’S WORST NIGHTMARE

NOT MUCH OF A LOOK

ABANDONED BY A GOD

AT LAST, THIS IS MUDWORT’S SPEAR

MEETING DIREFANG

NOT FOR HOPE

DIREFANG’S ROCKY STAND

BERA’S GRIEF

THE KILLING WOODS

FIGHTING WITH FIRE

AN UNANSWERED CRY FOR HELP

FIRESTORM

MUDWORT’S REFUSAL

DIREFANG’S CITY

AFTERWORD