Death March

DIREFANG’S MAPS

The moon was full, and its light was bright enough that Direfang could study the series of maps one of the dwarves had drawn. Rendered in charcoal and spread out over the small pages of the book, the maps were not near as detailed as the Dark Knight maps he’d admired in Steel Town. But then, he’d never been allowed to get too close to those precious maps. He had to be careful with the charcoal drawings too because the pages of the book were thin and the lines smeared easily.

He desperately needed a real map, one large and sturdy and drawn by men who’d been over the terrain. But he did not know where to get one.

The hobgoblin sat in the center of a wide trail that ran south of Reorx’s Cradle. He’d intended to peruse the crude maps while he was in the village, perhaps pass a few nights there and give the goblins more time to dig through the garden and truly relax. He certainly could have used the time to rest his leg and his foggy eyes, and to ask the old female dwarf more about the mountains. But he worried too much that the dwarves would provoke his charges into killing the women and children. It was bad enough when one of the dwarves saw Graytoes carry away a baby; the dwarf became hysterical, and her fellows had had to restrain her.

The priest had pleaded with Direfang to leave the baby in the village. “She belongs with her own kind,” the priest had argued.

But Graytoes wanted the child badly, and the mewling thing seemed to make her happy. So Direfang let Graytoes keep it, and he ordered the goblins out of the village to keep the surviving dwarves safe.

Why did he care about the dwarves to begin with? he wondered. What kind of spark of weakness, deep inside him, stopped him from letting the goblins slay every last dwarf in Reorx’s Cradle? Was it the same spark that had kept him from sending the goblins after the Dark Knights in the infirmary in Steel Town? Was his heart too soft?

“Weakness,” he grumbled. “Helpless and empty of fire.” He returned his attention to the maps.

He’d demanded the mapmaker put a scale to her drawings or something to roughly indicate the passing of miles or days’ travel between one place and the next. But she added only landmarks that he might notice on his journey south, not seeming to understand precisely what he wanted. So Direfang still had no clue where exactly they were in the mountain chain and how much farther it was to the sea.

“Maybe two years’ travel,” he mused. “Could it really take that long, two years? Or could it take more? The world is so big.”

“Two years for what?” Boliver asked. The earth-colored goblin scratched his head, listening to Direfang. Then he scowled as he understood. “Two years to reach Mudwort’s forest? Two years?”

“To the Qualinesti Forest,” Direfang said. “Maybe. Hard to tell. More than a year, probably. Maybe two. A long time in any event. It is on the other side of the world from Steel Town. There’s a mountain range and a swamp, and then more mountains. The world is very, very big, Boliver.”

Boliver shook his head in disbelief. “Don’t think all the clans will walk for that long. Saro-Saro is old and might not live that long anyway. Besides, the clans are tired of walking in these mountains. The forest would be good, though, at least the forest I saw in the vision Mudwort conjured. Lots and lots of trees there. But the clans may give up before the forest. Before two years, surely, Direfang. The clans will give up long before one year.”

“Yes,” Direfang replied. And that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, would it? he mused to himself. He imagined how good it would feel to be left alone … or to be traveling with just a handful of goblins he truly liked. But there was no safety in small numbers. The ogres and minotaurs would capture the goblins and hobgoblins and resell them as slaves to the Dark Knights. Their only hope was to cling together in that massive force.

Not even the tylor had defeated them.

Direfang’s finger hovered above the spot where the map-making dwarf had drawn an X to represent Reorx’s Cradle. But she hadn’t known where Steel Town was-the Dark Knights had kept the place as secret as possible-and so he still had no way of knowing how far they’d come from the ruined mining camp.

How many days had they traveled? At first Direfang had tried to keep count, but the numbers were lost. Since his tumble down the mountainside, some things were difficult to recall.

He looked toward the bottom edge of the page, where the dwarf had drawn the peaks more tightly packed. The priest had translated that those represented the Southern Khalkists, which consisted of the Onyx Teeth, on the border of the swamp, and the Ogre Peaks, which Direfang desperately wanted to avoid. Nearby stretched what she’d called the Reorxcrown Mountains, which essentially formed the border between Khur and Blode. She’d claimed that her village was in the central Khalkists, near a group of mountains called the Suncradles, from which came the name of their village, Reorx’s Cradle. The dwarf had said she’d never traveled beyond those ranges, and so could not draw a map of anything else.

“One thing sure. A long way to go to the Qualinesti Forest,” Direfang repeated. “Too long.”

Boliver, looking over his shoulder, tried to make his own sense of the maps but finally gave up. “Maybe Mudwort can find a better way,” he proposed, “one that would not take two years. Maybe one that would not involve walking over more mountains.”

Direfang raised his head. “Yes. Maybe Mudwort can.”

“I’ve been watching you,” Grallik said, “for some time now.” He sat opposite Mudwort, though not so close that he might spook her into fleeing. “Can you understand me? Understand anything I’m saying to you?” He sat with his back straight and his shoulders square, traditional military posture. He tried to show some pride, even though he wore filthy rags and his hair was a tangled, matted mess.

The red-skinned goblin regarded the wizard slowly. Her nostrils swelled, taking in his fetid scent, and she drew her lips into a line, her brow furrowing and her veins tightening along the sides of her head. Her eyes were tiny, dark points as they fixed on Grallik, but the wizard was uncertain if she was really looking at him or through him. She seemed to disappear inside herself, breathing shallowly and not even acknowledging his presence.

“Mudwort,” he tried again.

Not even a blink did he get.

The air was cool and had a dampness to it, and the faint breeze brought the scent of wildflowers that grew in patches of dirt on the eastern slope. But the breeze also bore the redolent stink of hobgoblins and goblins. There was a distinct odor to the mountains themselves too, the peaks rising to the east and west and stretching as far south as they could see.

Grallik let out a deep breath and placed his hands on his knees, the fingers of his right hand finding one of the many holes in his undertunic and worrying at the threads. He kept his eyes on the goblin shaman, resolving to engage her, communicate with her. It was the first real chance he’d had to talk to her.

“I know you can speak a little of the human tongue. I heard you warn a guard back in Steel Town about the coming earthquakes.”

She scowled. “Warned the guards about something.” The human words sounded raspy and foreign coming from her, and he had to concentrate to understand her. “Did not know about what you call … earthquakes. Just knew the stones in the mine were anxious. Felt something bad was going to happen, but the Dark Knights would not listen to me. Now those Dark Knights are dead.”

“You knew the volcanoes would erupt too, didn’t you?”

She scooted farther away from him and looked around, seeing groups of goblins nearby; there were so many in Direfang’s army that true solitude was impossible. She watched Pippa smoothing at a shirt she’d fashioned into a dress and trying to brush the dirt out of it.

Grallik craned his neck to see what she was looking at. Pippa was also wearing the slippers she’d taken off a dead dwarf; she’d tied them around her feet with cord she’d found somewhere. They made slapping sounds as she moved. The young goblin had also tied a cord around her waist to hold her shirt up so she wouldn’t trip over its hem. Grallik thought the goblin looked absurd, comical, and he returned his attention to Mudwort.

“Your magic …?” Grallik had rehearsed several speeches he’d planned to deliver to Mudwort, but the right words eluded him at the moment.

She turned to look at him, again her small eyes staring, her expression heavy with distaste. She folded her spindly arms in front of her, relaxed them and interlaced her fingers. After a moment, she rubbed her thumbs together, a gesture that might have seemed nervous but that Grallik took for boredom. He feared she might get up and leave him at any moment.

“Mudwort … I want to-”

She wrinkled her nose and spat. “Hate Dark Knights.” Those words were clear; he had no trouble understanding. “Mean men, hateful men.” Still, she made no move to rise, though she glanced up for a moment.

The moon was directly overhead, silvery and hazy with a rain ring.

“The Dark Knight tongue is ugly sounding,” she added matter-of-factly. “Don’t know much of it. Don’t want to. The words are as ugly as the men.”

“But some of it, the language, you know. That is good.” He paused. “Listen, please. I’m not a Dark Knight anymore, Mudwort.” Grallik spoke slowly, hoping that it might help her understand his words, trying to emphasize his sincerity. “I left the Order when I left Steel Town. I’m just a man now and-”

“A hated man.” She spat again. “A slave now.”

“Mudwort, teach me your magic.” He ground his teeth together, angry at himself for rushing into his plea. He’d not intended to bring up the subject until after he’d established some sort of rapport with her-days or, at the outside, weeks from then. He’d planned to compliment her on her skills, try to get her to warm to him. But he’d clearly ruined any chances he might have had. His skin suddenly felt as dry and brittle as old parchment; the damp air seemed to pull all the life from him. His face and hands felt chafed, and his fingers ached so badly that he stopped worrying at the thread.

All around them goblins chattered, but he could understand none of their guttural exchanges. For all he knew, they could be nattering on about the baby the little yellow-skinned goblin had stolen, arguing over the spoils, or simply discussing the weather.

Grallik couldn’t see Kenosh or Horace, but he suspected they were nearby, watching him warily. Kenosh was loyal and never strayed too far. Grallik had put all three of their lives in such disarray that there might never be a future for them beyond slaving to that tribe of little monsters. The wizard silently raged against the world and himself for his stupidity.

What have I done? he mouthed.

He raised a hand and pressed it against his forehead, let his fingers trail down over his face. He didn’t need a mirror to register his appearance. His cheeks were sunken and his chin pronounced, the scraggly beard not enough to cover it. He’d practically been starving himself since leaving Steel Town. Grallik had always been thin, in part due to his half-elf heritage. But he’d never been gaunt before. The goblins had not been giving him more than meager handfuls of nourishment, and he hadn’t been able to eat some of it-raw meat, insects and grubs. The one tomato Horace gave him from the dwarves’ garden had exploded inside his stomach and made him feel sick, he was so unused to food.

He was weak from hunger, and he blamed his weakness, his hunger, for his fumbling mistakes, asking Mudwort so bluntly about her magic. He should have scavenged in the village, as everyone else had.

“I’m sorry. I …” He shook his head in resignation. “So hungry. So hungry, I’m not thinking right.”

“Then eat, wizard,” Mudwort said brusquely. “Ask Direfang for food to fill that ugly little belly. Beg. Beg to be given something.”

“Beg?”

“Like the slaves in Steel Town begged,” she answered. “Like the skull man begs.”

Grallik looked around, finding Horace easily then, standing amid a group of goblins, staring at him and Mudwort as though he were listening to every pathetic word. Had the priest begged for food?

“Go beg,” she said. “Like a slave. Then come back and talk about magic.”

Thoroughly broken, Grallik begged and Direfang took pity on him.

The goblins chittered happily as the wizard groveled before Direfang. The begging, though embarrassing, netted the wizard a basket heavy with tomatoes and potatoes, a handful of berries that set his mouth to watering, and a jug of what might have been dwarven ale.

Grallik took his prizes to a side of the trail where there were only a few goblins, who watched, pointed, and whispered about him. He was careful not to eat too much too quickly. He intended to ration the contents of the basket; it could last several days. There were many white crackers dotted with fennel seeds that were stuffed in the side of the basket and felt as firm as bricks-dwarven hardtack, he suspected. It was fundamentally tasteless but useful and nourishing. He bit into one and chewed it gratefully.

When he returned to Mudwort, carrying the basket protectively close, he saw that the other earth-skinned goblin was sitting across from her, their fingers sunk into the dirt and their eyes closed. They were casting magic together, he was excited to see.

Direfang loomed over Mudwort, however, and several other goblins hovered nearby, all of them clearly curious. With a scowl, Direfang waved the wizard away.

Grallik sighed with disappointment, knowing he’d missed an opportunity to talk to Mudwort and an even greater opportunity to observe her working her strange magic. He turned to seek Horace’s and Kenosh’s company.

“Sit,” Mudwort said, surprising him and the others.

Grallik wasn’t aware she’d seen him and wasn’t sure she was even talking to him. But then she repeated her command, her head turned ever-so-slightly toward him. Perhaps her eyes were not completely closed after all. Or perhaps she had heard him return. He drew his eyebrows together thoughtfully.

Or perhaps she’d sensed him walking on the path as her fingers were buried in it.

His hesitation was brief. He sat cross-legged next to her and the brown-skinned goblin. He sat closer to her than before; he could reach over and touch her if he tried. Direfang and the others stepped back, giving them space.

“Boliver,” Mudwort said, introducing her companion goblin to Grallik. “A clan shaman in the Before Time. Boliver is a stoneteller.”

Grallik didn’t know what the Before Time was, nor a stoneteller, and neither goblin explained further.

Boliver nodded without opening his eyes. His lips were working, like a babe suckling, and the muscles in his arms jumping.

“Boliver, this is the hated Dark Knight that watches,” Mudwort continued. “The one who wielded the hated fire magic in Steel Town. The one that burns the bodies. The one that wants to mingle magic.” She spat at the ground near Grallik’s knee. “The dirty, smelly Dark Knight with all the fire-scars.”

Grallik felt unnerved by Mudwort’s description of him.

She cocked her head toward the wizard, as if she were waiting for something. Grallik didn’t know what to do or what she expected.

Was he allowed to speak?

He set his basket in his lap and put his hands on his knees, finding a hole in his clothing and once more worrying at the threads. He coughed once and a deeper, brief hacking followed. He’d not been able to entirely shake the cough he’d developed in Steel Town, but he noticed it had been getting better the farther away from the mine they traveled.

“The hated Dark Knight hesitates. Frightened maybe?” That was Boliver’s statement. The goblin chuckled mirthlessly.

“I … I don’t understand,” Grallik said. “What should I do?”

Neither goblin responded, their fingers sinking deeper into the hard-packed ground. A moment more, and their hands disappeared below the surface. Mudwort leaned forward until her head touched Boliver’s.

Gravel crunched and Grallik looked up to see Direfang edging closer again. The hobgoblin’s gaze was fixed on Mudwort.

“Mudwort,” Direfang began. “As I said, the maps the dwarf drew are not enough to go on, and the mountains stretch too far. This army stops in the Plains of Dust-”

“Unless there is a shorter way,” she finished. “Yes, I know. You seek a better way to the forest.”

“Mudwort’s forest,” Boliver said.

Grallik glanced at Direfang, then returned his attention to the two goblins. He stretched a hand forward, tentatively, and touched the ground in front of him. It felt as hard as stone.

“What magic do you possess?” he whispered, half to himself, half to Mudwort. “How can you possibly-” He gasped as his fingers suddenly slipped down into the earth, the ground becoming soft and malleable as wet clay. It was nothing he did himself, he knew, as he’d cast no spell, nor even searched his memory for one.

It was all her doing, he decided, gasping again when her fingers grabbed his beneath the surface and tugged his arms deeper still. Grallik set his other hand upon the ground, feeling it solid at first, then yielding. More fingers grabbed that hand, and he couldn’t tell if those belonged to Mudwort or Boliver.

Grallik struggled for air, feeling a painful tightness in his chest, as if the goblins meant to suffocate him in the dirt. He felt dizzy as his mind spiraled down into the ground. A heartbeat later, and he felt as if he were rising. Though his eyes were wide open and staring at Mudwort, an image superimposed itself on his vision; he realized he was staring down at the two goblins and himself from a point high above them on the trail.

He opened his mouth to ask “How?” but he couldn’t speak. It was their spell, he realized, Mudwort and Boliver’s; and they’d pulled him into it somehow, maybe using his arcane energies to help power it. That would explain the dizziness, the feeling of being siphoned. He closed his eyes as the view became clearer. As if he were a bird soaring on some thermal updraft, looking down on the world. He rose, and the image of himself and the two goblins, of Direfang hovering and goblins upon goblins stretched out along the trail, became smaller and smaller until all were specks.

In his precious spell tomes in Steel Town, there was an incantation like the spell he was experiencing. It was not joined magic, of course; before watching the goblins, he’d not thought it possible to join magic. But the “distant view,” a spell like that stirred a memory. Arcane eye, arcane vision, magic sight … something like that was the name of the enchantment. He’d cast it once or twice, a long time past. He’d collected the necessary words for it during his study with the black-robed wizards before the Chaos War. He had written them down in a precious spell tome, lost when the earthquakes hit.

He’d never had a reason to use such a spell since his early years, so preoccupied had he become with his destructive fire enchantments. Amazing spellcraft! he thought as his mind floated higher, and vaguely he registered that he was growing weaker still. Mudwort is definitely feeding off me. The spell was parasitic, evidently. But Grallik didn’t care. She and Boliver were tugging him along, and he savored the experience.

He spied a river running parallel to the mountains, on the other side of the western ridge. Grallik knew Mudwort would tell Direfang about the water and that they would look for a shortcut to reach it. They were all so thirsty, despite drinking out of the stream near Reorx’s Cradle. The river he saw was wide and dark with night, with the moon reflected in it, the shimmering ripples stark against the black water, adding to the wizard’s dizziness.

There seemed no more mountains west of the river. Grallik released a sigh of relief. He was so tired of all the damnable rocks that rose all around him and the sharp little ones along the trail that bit into his painfully-aching feet. There were low hills farther west, but they evinced gentle slopes. The land beyond them smoothed to a plain divided by a winding road.

He wanted to linger over the inviting countryside, but Mudwort didn’t seem too interested in the area.

The image of the river returned, and the goblins’ magic followed it south. The river narrowed, with pines growing along its banks. The roots of the pines looked like black snakes slithering into the equally black river, the tall trees cutting some of the moonlight and making the scene look eerie.

Startled, Grallik heard the splash of some fish and the rustling of branches as a great horned owl took flight. There was a smattering of the sound of smaller wings-blackbirds that had been disturbed by something. He could smell the river; then the goblins’ magic took him low across the clear water. Grallik tried to hold the refreshing scent in deep and memorize it. That helped to banish the vestiges of char that had clung to his nostrils since he had burned the last batch of goblin bodies.

Before he could make out all the details of the scene, they were climbing again, and the scent of the pines mingled with the night air. Another wave of dizziness crashed against him, and his physical form fought for balance. The pines gave way to oaks, some of them ancient things with gnarled trunks as twisted as bent old men. Their branches overhung the river, creating a canopy, and the goblins passed through it, dragging Grallik’s senses with them.

He swore he could feel the leaves tickling his skin and the wind cooling his face. He delighted in the soft sounds.

Farther, and the river widened once more, meandering through a stretch of rocky land dotted by smaller trees. Finally the river straightened, miles and miles from where they’d started their journey. And judging by the whorls and ripples on its surface, Grallik could tell the river’s current had picked up speed.

Ahead was a sheet of blackness, speckled here and there by moonlight. The New Sea, he realized. There were a few deepwater docks at a port town to the west, a few lanterns glowing in windows … so tiny, the dots looked like fireflies.

“Not all that far to get to the sea,” Grallik heard Boliver say. “A few weeks to the water. No longer than that. Maybe less. Maybe only days. Hard to tell how long it will take to walk there. But not all that far.”

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

The hobgoblin didn’t answer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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