Death March

REORX’S CRADLE

The dwarf screamed and the goblins charged, whooping and drawing their knives, their feet pounding loudly against the ground. The dwarf had surprised them, standing up on the far side of a stream she’d been kneeling at to wash clothes.

A copse of trees rose beyond her and the stream; willowy pin oaks and silver maples glittered pale green with dew in the early-morning sun. The goblins had been fixated on the trees, so they hadn’t noticed the female dwarf at first.

They were thirsty, and the stream had been their destination; Mudwort had found it in a vision with her earth magic. But Mudwort had said nothing of the short, stocky dwarf woman.

If the dwarf hadn’t screamed and startled them, they might not have killed her. They might have simply let her run away, or they might have tried to talk to her and asked where they were in the Khalkists; Direfang wanted to know how many miles they’d traveled since leaving Steel Town and how many more they had left to go.

But the scream rattled them and sealed her fate. And she wouldn’t stop screaming, her cries getting louder and more hysterical as she waved her arms like an ungainly bird trying to take flight.

“Quiet!” Spikehollow had shouted at her in the goblin tongue. “Quiet now, short woman!”

But she didn’t understand goblinspeak, so she screamed some more, eyes wide and staring at the hundreds of goblins who were marching through the valley straight toward her. Fear rooted her to the bank.

Spikehollow was the first to reach her, splashing across and driving his long knife into her stomach and killing her with a single blow. Pippa and Leftear were close behind and slashed at her too, not realizing she was already dead. The next few goblins were caught by the frenzy and turned her into a pulpy mass.

“Should have shut up,” Spikehollow said ruefully, as he stepped away from the body and washed the blood off his hide in the stream. “That short, fat, ugly woman should have listened and shut up.”

“The woman’s clothes are ruined,” Pippa said, frowning and pointing to the bloody rag that used to be the dwarf’s shift. “Shoes all right, though. Short, wide shoes.” She shouldered her way up to the body, crawling between the legs of a hobgoblin and tugging the leather slippers off. She sloshed them around in the water to rinse off the blood and pranced away with her prize.

Chima draped herself over a small basket near the body and clawed angrily at her kinsmen who were trying to see what was inside. Leftear growled at her and waved his knife, but she wouldn’t budge from the basket.

“Enough!” Direfang had not been at the front of the column, and he’d been late to catch up with the dwarf killing at the stream. Since his tumble down the mountainside, he’d been forced to move slower because of a twisted leg and blurry vision. He’d nearly died back there, and the Dark Knight priest had saved him-just as the priest had also saved Graytoes and Two-chins. But the priest told Direfang some of the mending would have to come on its own, and that could take days.

“Leave Chima alone!” Direfang barked. He had directed Spikehollow to lead while he’d drifted back into the heart of his army, walking at a slower pace. Rustymane, another hobgoblin, had been charged with carrying the still-whining Graytoes.

Direfang plodded forward as fast as his sore leg would allow, stopping when his feet sank into the cool mud of the stream bank. He stared across to the opposite bank and at the woman’s body, barely recognizable as a dwarf’s. Then he glanced at Chima, who still protected the basket filled with clothes.

“Take one thing from the basket,” he ordered Chima. “Only one.”

She raised her lip in a protesting snarl but bit off any reply. Then she dipped her head in the basket and poked through it until she came up with what she guessed was a child’s dress the color of wet saw grass. She pulled it on and stepped back.

“Saro-Saro’s clan should have the basket now,” someone behind Direfang said. “Saro-Saro-”

“Enough!” Direfang repeated. He whirled to face the goblins behind him, anger etched deep in his scarred face. “Savages,” he said, waving an arm to indicate the dwarf. “There was no threat here. No weapon. One woman washing clothes! No reason for this bloodletting!”

“But the fat woman screamed,” Spikehollow protested at Direfang’s side, still wet from the stream. He cleaned his knife on the grass and sheathed it. “Screamed and screamed. And that scream could have brought men with weapons.”

“Probably her screams will bring men.” Chima smoothed at her dress and adjusted it around her hips until it lay properly, though it was too big and hung to her ankles. “The woman screamed a lot. That short, fat woman-”

“Dwarf,” Direfang said with a sigh. He knew some of the goblins had never seen a dwarf. “That was a dwarf.”

“Just one dwarf,” Spikehollow added. He’d dropped his voice so only the closest goblins could hear. “One that will never scream again.”

“One that might have been worth talking to.” Direfang wiped a line of spittle from his lip.

More goblins splashed across the stream, some lingering in the water to drink. The Dark Knights drank too, and washed their hands and faces.

“Talking to one dwarf would not have been much help.”

“Need a map, Spikehollow. Need to know how much farther to the fishhook of mountains that goes around the sea. Need to know how many more days-”

“That dwarf did not have a map,” Spikehollow said sulkily. He cocked his head and opened his mouth to say something else, but Direfang waved him silent.

The sound of goblins splashing in the stream grew louder, and many were pushed up on the opposite bank to make room for their fellows. Direfang moved farther away to avoid being jostled.

“Rustymane and Graytoes will pass out the rest of those clothes.” Direfang gestured at the basket and snarled when some of the yellow-skinned goblins growled their objections.

Chima twirled to show off her dress. “There will be more clothes from other dwarf women. There will be more dwarves nearby. Dwarves are like birds, nesting together. Many dwarves, maybe.”

“But not too many,” Leftear said. “Don’t want there to be too many.”

“Look! Fat little men!” Rustymane shouted. “They’re here now!”

Gravel-voiced shouts and the sound of branches breaking came from the south. Dwarves appeared, weaving around the trees and charging toward the goblins, their stubby legs churning up the loam.

“See? That short, fat woman should not have screamed,” Spikehollow said triumphantly. “Look what comes now!”

A cheer went up from the goblins as they rushed to meet the dwarves’ charge, while a shiver raced down Direfang’s spine.

“More killing!” Chima exclaimed, her eyes sparkling as she raced to join the fray.

“Tired of all the blood,” Direfang said. But he stood and watched and made no move to call a halt to it.

“Do not hurt the trees!” Pippa cried. She was sitting on the muddy bank and trying to put on her new shoes, but they kept slipping off because they were too wide. Goblins swarmed past her, rudely bumping her aside on their way to grappling with the dwarves.

There were only fourteen dwarves, wielding hoes, rakes, and shovels, their beards swishing around their waists as they dashed toward the goblins. The dwarves’ clothes were not so fine as what the men had worn in Steel Town, Direfang couldn’t help but notice, and not one of them wore a piece of armor.

Direfang moved forward as his kinsmen started the killing.

The first dwarf fell before Direfang cleared the far bank.

The dwarves’ battle cries were brief. Only one remained standing by the time Direfang lumbered to the edge of the copse. He was a young, stout dwarf, the hobgoblin saw, and the muscles of his arms bunched as he swung his hoe around like a scythe. The dwarf’s wide arc caught Chima in the stomach, ripping through the green dress she’d coveted. He picked her up on the blade and effortlessly heaved her over his shoulder. She landed in the low branches of a pin oak, her arms twitching and rattling twigs as she died. Leftear howled his anger at his friend’s death as the young dwarf ripped open the belly of another goblin, then one more.

To Direfang’s eyes the dwarf was obviously more than the simple farmer he’d initially appeared and far more skilled than his dead kinsmen. The dwarf flipped the hoe around and struck a female goblin in the forehead with the handle, cracking her skull, then rapped her in the temple so hard that blood ran down her face and she crumpled. The dwarf spun the hoe again, once more using it as a scythe and slaying one of Saro-Saro’s clansmen. Then he advanced on a hobgoblin, using the handle end of the hoe as a spear.

Goblins flowed around the last dwarf, trying to avoid the deadly hoe and awkwardly navigating through the trees, some of them stopping to stare up at the leaves and to feel the bark. Many of the goblins had been born in Steel Town and had never seen trees, save the pines to the far north of the camp, and they could not hide their amazement. Other goblins continued past their wide-eyed fellows, breaking through the copse and seeing a village shaded by the eastern slope of a jagged peak.

They whooped loudly at their discovery, and Direfang hurried to catch up to them. He glanced once over his shoulder, seeing that the defiant dwarf was finally being brought down by the odds, the hoe yanked from him as he was brutally torn apart.

Direfang lengthened his stride, ignoring the ache in his twisted leg and blinking furiously in a failed effort to clear his vision.

“Stop! No more killing!” he shouted as loudly as he could. “No more blood! Listen! Stop!” He wanted someone in the village left alive to talk to, to ask about the mountains and the land beyond them.

He shouted “Stop!” until he was hoarse. And eventually the goblins did stop-just short of the village. Anxious, the goblins raised and lowered their knives, shifted from one foot to the other, or craned their necks this way and that to get a better look at the dwarf homes. They whispered among themselves, the noise like a swarm of locusts. And though it was difficult to make much sense of what the goblins said, Direfang knew they were excited at the prospect of what might be gained and what they might kill.

Behind him, Direfang heard the whoops of the goblins still beating on the corpse of the last defiant dwarf and his dead fellows. He glanced over his shoulder and saw goblins stripping clothes and boots off the corpses and snatching the farm implements the dwarves had used as weapons. Farther back, other goblins were still splashing in the stream and drinking their fill.

They were more of a mob than an army, the eight hundred or so goblins and hobgoblins who followed him. They were difficult but not impossible to control. They had held together up till then, as he’d demanded. But they likely would not hold for long.

Again, Direfang wished leading them were not his burden.

“Why stop?” Spikehollow had come up next to him, where Direfang had paused to look over the dwarf settlement. Spikehollow looked eager to charge into the village. “Why stop here, Direfang?”

Direfang didn’t reply, but he limped forward, gesturing as he went that the goblins and hobgoblins should stay put. He reached the front of the mob and started counting the buildings.

There were fifty small homes, sturdily built from blocks that had been chiseled out of the mountains and mortared together with a white paste. The roofs were for the most part thatch, more tightly woven than any of the roofs in Steel Town had been. A few were made of slices of shale, also mortared together and looking like fish scales.

“Skull man!” Direfang bellowed.

None of the homes had wood doors, as the Dark Knights had used. But they all had goat or sheep hides covering the openings and more hides hanging across the narrow windows. Several of the hides had symbols painted on them-anvils and hammers and other things Direfang could not recognize. One house had a riot of purple and yellow flowers growing around it. Another had a large pot outside of its door that contained a bush covered with red berries. Smoke rose from the chimney of only one home, and the hobgoblin sniffed to tell if something were cooking over a fire, but the scent of his wet kinsmen overpowered all other smells.

A large garden filled the center of the village and wrapped around most of the homes, with paths cutting through it leading to doorways and toward the trees and the stream. The crops were thriving. Cornstalks in a section to the west stood taller than Direfang; bushbeans to the east were fully leafed, and each plant appeared as big around as a barrel. There were vegetables Direfang had never seen before: bright red and yellow pear-shaped bulbs, and bumpy, purple bulbs as big as his fist. One section was filled with dark red berries growing on slender, thorny vines.

“Why wait?” Spikehollow had edged up close behind Direfang. “Raid the village. Take the food. Take everything.”

“Everything, everything, everything,” Leftear growled, not far behind Spikehollow. “For Chima and Grok and Durth and Bignose,” he said, naming the goblins the young dwarf had killed. “Everything.”

“Skull man!” Direfang repeated. “Come here now!” He heard goblins grudgingly move out of the way for the priest, some of them cursing the Dark Knight and spitting, and others talking excitedly about the imminent raid on the pretty village. “Skull man!”

“I’m here, Foreman,” Horace said, hurrying up, his dark skin gleaming. He’d cleaned himself in the stream, and water dripped from his shoulders.

Direfang pointed to the far eastern edge of the village, to what held most of the goblins’ attention. Past the massive garden, a boulder had been carved into the shape of an anvil. It was roughly eight feet tall and a little more than that in width. Its sides were polished and shone darkly, and they were etched with symbols that Direfang suspected were words, but he was too far away to read them. Circling the anvil were a few dozen dwarf women and children, kneeling, eyes closed, and obviously praying.

“Easy to kill, those short, fat people,” Pippa said gleefully. “Saro-Saro says that-”

“There will be no more killing,” Direfang growled. “Skull man?”

“They are worshipers of Reorx,” said Horace, staring at the huge boulder and the dwarves praying. “What else do you want to know, Foreman Direfang?”

Direfang raised an eyebrow. He knew about some of Krynn’s gods, primarily Zeboim, from the priest; and Takhisis and Chislev, from some of the Dark Knights in the mining camp. But he’d not heard of that one, the god of the dwarves, Reorx.

“Is Reorx a god only for dwarves?” the hobgoblin asked. “Does Reorx demand the dwarves pray at that rock?”

“The gods are worthless,” Spikehollow spat. All of the goblins and hobgoblins who followed Direfang considered themselves godless. The gods had done nothing for goblin-kind, had allowed them to be enslaved and to be bullied by practically every race on Krynn. “No god will save those dwarves. Attack now, Direfang?”

The hobgoblin shook his head irritably.

The goblins had spread out behind Direfang, stretching as far across as the village and standing several ranks deep, yet none of them dared to step past the hobgoblin. They continued to whisper, though, a shushing that was similar to the sound of the breeze rustling through the trees.

“Do the dwarves pray for Reorx to come down and smite this army?” Boliver had moved up next to the priest and was speaking now, with Mudwort close behind him. Boliver was addressing the priest; he was one of the few goblins to fluently speak the human tongue. “Or do the dwarves pray to have all hobgoblins and goblins spirited away? What can this god do, skull man? This Re-or-ax?”

“Nothing,” Spikehollow softly muttered. “Gods do nothing.”

“Gods …” Horace took a deep breath and tilted his head back, wondering where to begin. “Reorx is called Elian, the Anvil, the Forge, and the Weaponmaster. The patron of smiths and craftsmen across Ansalon, he is said to toil with Shinare to improve the lives of dwarves. The World Smith, with his hammer and under the direction of the High God of Krynn, he forged the stars and the world and shaped the souls of mortals from the breath of Chaos. Reorx is the supreme god of the dwarves, and gnomes and kender revere him as well. Reorx-”

“But goblins revere no gods,” Direfang said tersely.

A young goblin jabbed Direfang in the back of his sore leg. “Do not understand,” she hissed. “All this babble. Do not understand!”

Boliver tried to translate some of the discussion, which was relayed down the ranks. The goblins began chattering about what little they knew, all the talk about the strange dwarf creatures and their supposed god.

“What do the dwarves say, priest?” asked Direfang.

Horace wiped his face with his big hands, and brushed at his leather leggings, which were still filthy despite his stop in the stream. He cocked his head, trying to make out the words.

“Never seen dwarves,” Leftear whispered. “Are short, fat humans also dwarves?”

Horace listened. “I can’t make out all the words.”

“Bah! The words make no sense to me,” said Direfang.

The wizard had come up behind the priest and the hobgoblin; his gaze flitted between the dwarves and Direfang. “I can’t understand them either, Horace. I had no call to learn their language. But I’ll wager they’re praying for their souls. They know they’re going to die. These goblins will-”

“No more blood,” Direfang repeated. “Not this day, wizard. There’s been enough blood today.” He motioned again for his fellows to stay back then plucked at the priest’s arm. “Come now, skull man. Talk to the dwarves.” The hobgoblin shuffled down one of the garden paths toward the assembled dwarves and the stone anvil.

“Gray Robe, watch the homes,” Horace cautioned over his shoulder.

“Just in case,” Grallik added. “Just in case there are warriors waiting to spring a trap.”

The dwarves continued to pray, some of the women’s voices rising louder and the words coming quicker as the hobgoblin and the priest neared. When the pair came to within a few feet of them, an ancient dwarf with thin, gray hair tied loosely behind her head got to her feet with effort. She nervously looked between the priest and Direfang, and she kept mouthing her prayer.

“Woman,” Direfang began. “Quiet, woman!” His words sounded like a fierce growl, and the hobgoblin half expected the dwarf to start at the sound.

But she didn’t even meet his gaze, staring at his stomach while her lips kept moving in the prayer.

“Woman,” Direfang began again. The hobgoblin looked back to the eager mass of goblins. “Dwarf …” He knew he needed to find a way to communicate with the dwarves soon, or his army would descend on that place and kill anything that moved. He’d need to prove the dwarves useful and worth allowing to live. He stretched an arm out and poked the shoulder of the frantically praying old female dwarf.

“Listen, woman!”

She looked up, her eyes meeting his and showing her anger. She stopped praying and spoke, but the words were still all foreign, except for Reorx, which she repeated several times.

Direfang let out an exasperated sigh. “Skull man!”

“Let me try something.” Horace glanced uneasily at the goblin army. “You don’t need to butcher these people, Foreman Direfang. They’ve no weapons. They all look to be simple farmers and-”

“Talk to the farmers, then, priest. Talk fast and tell me how simple they really are.” But the priest might be right, Direfang thought; not even the sturdiest among the women had a knife or cudgel.

“We come to your village …” Horace tried speaking in the tongue of gnomes, a language with which he was more familiar; his words were halting, however. “We mean you no harm, and …”

Most of the dwarves had stopped praying. They still knelt around the stone anvil, but they were paying attention, staring at the priest. The expression on their faces revealed that they understood his words. The ancient dwarf shuffled closer and looked up into Horace’s wide eyes.

“Harm? Mean us no harm?” Tears glistened in her eyes as she answered in the gnome tongue. “Your monsters butchered our men and our priest. Killed a divine man of Reorx! Your monsters will butcher us next. Reorx save our souls. And Reorx damn yours!”

Direfang found the language thick and fuzzy-sounding. It reminded him of the noise rocks made when they tumbled down the mountainside. Still, he listened closely, hoping to pick up anything he could understand.

“They are not my monsters,” Horace told the ancient female dwarf. “At the moment, I am their slave. They’ve done me no real harm, though, and if you are careful, you will stay safe too. But you have to be careful. And you have to listen to me.”

She narrowed her eyes and thrust out her chin, looking to Direfang and making a gesture with her fist. “Murdering monsters, they are. Reorx save us. Monsters come to Reorx’s Cradle.”

“That is the name of this …” Horace searched for the word. “Town?” he said finally.

“Reorx’s Cradle.”

“I’d have thought to find dwarves inside the mountain. You’d have been better off there. These goblins would not have found you.” Horace closed his eyes and mouthed a quick prayer to Zeboim. “And my goddess and your god willing, perhaps what’s left of your town can remain unhurt. The … foreman … is not as bloodthirsty as the rest of them.”

She returned her gaze to the priest, balled her fists and set them against her hips. “I ask only that the young be spared, and one of the mothers be spared to lead them from this place.”

Direfang, listening in frustration, catching only a few words at intervals, snarled and jabbed at the priest. “What does the dwarf say, skull man? Secret words are a dangerous thing.”

The goblins had pressed closer, some edging into the garden to the west, eyeing the vegetables and the caterpillars that crawled on them, then eyeing the dwarves. Their chatter grew louder.

The priest quickly translated what he and the old dwarf had said. “There are no more men in this village. You killed all of them.”

“But the homes?”

“Aye, they would suggest that more dwarves live here than we have been told, Foreman. You are smart to see that. This is not so small a village. Still, I can’t explain why, but I think she is telling the truth.”

Pippa and Leftear had made it to the garden and were plucking beans off a bush and stuffing them into their mouths. Saro-Saro was near them, on one of the paths, and he pointed to the nearest home and turned to his clan.

“The strange talking, it is done,” Saro-Saro proclaimed. “It is time to take. To take everything.”

A cheer went up.