Death March

EYESON A FALLEN KNIGHT

Zoccinder guarded the three captured goblins, though his presence was not really needed. The trio was bound with heavy twine, lashed with their backs together and stripped of the semblance of clothes they’d worn; Bera could not stomach the creatures wearing what had obviously once belonged to humans.

The goblins hadn’t the strength even to snap the twine. One of them had a broken leg; the bone protruded from its thigh, and the blood congealing on it drew flies.

She paced in a circle around the three, occasionally pausing to grind the ball of her foot against the hard-packed ground. That the vile creatures vaguely had the forms of men grated on her. Legs, arms, toes, fingers, all in roughly the same proportions-though certainly not the same size-as a human’s. Their heads were rounder, the face of the female in the trio was heart shaped, and their wrists and elbows stuck out as if the skin had been stretched over their bones. Their eyes were small and dark, sinister, with bony ridges that shadowed them like a hood, and their teeth were pointed like a rat’s. She’d touched a goblin only once before, years past, one time, purely out of curiosity. She’d found its hide like leather, scaly in places and with little clumps of hair sprouting here and there that felt bristly like a stiff brush.

“These smell no better alive than dead,” she muttered.

“Stink to be certain,” Zoccinder answered. He settled himself on the ground opposite the biggest goblin and took off his helmet; a thick mane of red hair spilled out on his shoulders, strands sticking together with sweat. He tugged off his gloves, shook them out, and folded them, tucking them beneath his belt. Then he ran the backs of his hands across his face. “Stink more in this heat, the rats do. Shouldn’t be quite so hot this time of year.”

Bera stopped her pacing and met his gaze. He had large blue eyes that possessed an unusual hardness. “Yes, we need to find water when we’re done here,” she said.

“Larol and a scout are already looking,” he replied.

Another few circles around the goblins, and Bera squatted in front of the female. The goblin tried to avert its gaze.

“Do you understand the Common tongue?” Bera removed one of her gloves and struck the goblin with it, quick and hard. “Do you understand?”

The goblin cast its gaze down but nodded pitifully.

“And can you speak it?”

A shake of its head.

“What about you others?”

The goblin with the broken leg whimpered and shivered. Bera couldn’t tell if it was frightened or had lost too much blood and was in shock. She shifted so she was directly in front of the wounded one.

“I can get you healing help. I’ve a battlefield medic in the ranks, and I can order her to mend your leg.” She wondered if the wounded goblin could detect the falseness in her voice. When it didn’t respond, she continued, “I asked, do you understand the Common tongue?”

It looked at her with a glazed expression on its ugly, pinched face.

“May I try, Commander?” Zoccinder asked. Then, without waiting for a reply, he rattled off words in a tongue she couldn’t identify. Bera knew it wasn’t goblin; she’d heard enough of that guttural variation before.

One of the goblins understood and haltingly replied.

“This one speaks Ogrish,” Zoccinder explained after a moment.

Bera raised an eyebrow. Perhaps there was indeed some ogre blood in Zoccinder.

“What do you want to know, Commander?” he continued. Again without waiting for an answer, he began conversing with the goblin.

Bera drew her lips into a fine line and stood. The wounded goblin in front of her watched her, trembling more noticeably.

“Where is the Dark Knight-former Dark Knight- Guardian Grallik N’sera?” Bera demanded, interrupting Zoccinder. “Ask that. Say he is a wizard, heavily scarred.”

Zoccinder cocked his head, asked, and waited. No answer came from the trembling goblin.

“We have a witness who says the wizard fled the mining camp and joined with the goblins,” Bera continued, waiting for Zoccinder to translate for the goblin. “He left his post and chose to live with the slaves instead of the Order.” The words hissed out. “He left my father and the other knights to die. Where is the traitor Grallik N’sera?”

Zoccinder spoke once more in the odd, deep-throated tongue. The exchange went on for several minutes, and midway through it the Dark Knight, losing patience, stretched his arm forward and dug his fingers deep into the goblin’s thigh. The goblin stiffened and spasmed, hissing a stream of words.

Finally Zoccinder released the goblin and leaned back, tipping his face up to catch the slight breeze that found its way down the mountainside. There was little natural light left in the day. Well away from Zoccinder and Bera, knights were building a large fire using the scrub they’d been gathering along the eastern edge of the valley.

“The goblin’s name is-”

“I don’t care what its name is.”

“He’s of some tribe-clan he calls it, Hurbear’s-this clan split from the main group. But all of these were from Iverton.”

“Steel Town,” she said, supplying the nickname the Dark Knights had called the place. Her father, Marshal Montrill, had been in command of Steel Town before the earthquakes erupted and destroyed the mines and camp. He died of injuries he suffered while trying to save his men, so she’d been told.

“What about the traitor Dark Knights? Zoccinder, the creature is not telling us all it knows.”

Zoccinder spoke in the ogre language again, and Bera found herself concentrating, trying to pick out familiar words in the strange tongue. The conversation went on too long. Her legs started to cramp, and she shifted back and forth on her heels, her thumb worrying over the pommel of her sword.

Eventually Zoccinder stopped and stood and worked a kink out of his neck. He fixed her with his blue eyes, which looked black in the lantern light. “This fellow doesn’t remember any Dark Knights joining with them, though he says he remembers that a group of goblins came back after the first earthquakes and killed plenty of Dark Knights in a surprise raid on Steel Town.”

Bera curled her lip. “Ask it about the rest of the goblins that escaped. Which way did they go? The traitor knights must be with them.”

“I did ask that. Says he doesn’t know where the larger group went, just that his clan, and some other clans, came this way instead. Says his leader”-Zoccinder gestured to a mound of dead goblins. More were being heaped on the pile as he watched.-“his clan did not want to go wherever the large group was headed. He says if there are more Dark Knights, like us, hunting for goblins in the mountains, then they will probably be found.”

“Yes, that will be their fate,” Bera said. In truth there was only one other unit, not quite as strong in numbers as hers. “Tell it that all of the escaped slaves will be hunted down and killed. Escaping is an affront that will be punished, making an example for the rest of the Order’s slaves. Tell it death is the penalty for running. Tell it …” She paused and ran her hands through her short brown hair, feeling it stiff with blood spatter. “Forget it. Tell it nothing else. Kill the one with the broken leg, Zoccinder. The other two will be marched back to Jelek in the morning. Lord Adjudicator Galen Nemedi asked we spare only a few for questioning and to be made examples of at another labor camp. More than that will burden our travel. And we have more work to do.” She took a dozen steps and looked over her shoulder. “And leave the dead one tied up with the two living ones.”

Bera sat apart from the men, her back against a spike of rock on the western side of the valley. She listened to the steady buzz of conversation, the occasional outburst of laughter from those around the fire, and above it all the deep voice of Zoccinder, who was singing. He sang on almost every night that she didn’t order a quiet camp, usually offering hymns to the gods, but his choice that night was a battle song about the blue dragons and their riders who had died in the Chaos War. She could see his huge silhouette against the fire. She watched him and the specks of red that popped off the burning wood and floated away like fireflies.

Zoccinder was starting in on the second chorus when a figure approached her, blocking Bera’s view.

“Commander?”

“Isaam.” Bera nodded a greeting and gestured for the wizard to sit next to her.

“I was listening to Zoccinder,” Bera murmured. She kept her eyes on him, even when the wizard sat so close that their shoulders touched. The wizard was a slight man, only five and a half feet tall, with an oddly pudgy face that reminded Bera of a bulldog’s.

“Yes, a remarkable voice Zocci has,” the wizard admitted. “Quite the repertoire too.” Together they listened until the song finished, to the mild applause of the other Dark Knights who’d been lulled into paying attention. “I understand you do not want me to burn the dead goblins, Commander.”

Bera shook her head. “No.”

“They draw bugs. Have you been over to the mound of dead? The gnats are thick as river fog. And there are beetles.”

“Insects don’t bother me, Isaam.”

“It is customary to burn the bodies. We always burn goblins.” The wizard had been under Bera’s command for nearly a decade. He was her second, and so she allowed him to argue with her from time to time. “We should accord them the honor of burial …”

Bera chuckled softly. “You don’t know all that much about goblins, do you, Isaam?”

“No. Do you?”

“I know enough.”

“To hate them. I know you hate them, Commander.” Bera smiled. “Aye, they are rats to me.” “So far from humankind, you’ve said. I agree. Repulsive little things.”

“And their practices are barbaric.” Bera held her hand up, briefly halting the discussion as Zoccinder launched into another song. She’d heard that one a few times before, and when he reached the chorus, she continued. “I’ve had you burn goblins before; I well know that. But this time is different. This time we leave two survivors to tell the tale of this night. Don’t you understand, old friend? They prefer us to burn the bodies of their dead. It is not enough that bodies are dismembered, shredded, the bones broken. They must be burned. Otherwise, they believe, goblin souls will come back, returning to broken, rotting bodies.”

Isaam’s eyes grew wide. “In all my years with you, I’ve not heard you speak of this.”

“I’ve had no reason to, old friend. We’re not slavers to capture goblins, and so we’ve not left any survivors before. As you say, we’ve burned them before.”

“But we’ve never before camped in such close proximity to the dead either. By all the gods, the stench and bugs-”

“We’ll move on at first light, Isaam.”

The wizard gestured toward the pile. “And so if their bodies are burned, the souls are freed, eh?”

“That is what they believe. Otherwise the souls will return and be trapped in rotting corpses. But when the bodies are burned, the souls are free to move elsewhere and start a new life in a goblin baby being born,” Bera finished.

“What an insipid belief,” the wizard pronounced.

“They are insipid creatures.” Bera wriggled her nose in disgust. “And so the dead ones can draw bugs, and so the two we’ve left alive stare at the mound of corpses in terror, thinking the souls are seeping back and reinhabiting the bodies, becoming trapped.”

The wizard nodded. “A horror story you’ve birthed.”

“The two survivors will be taken to a slave encampment when the Lord Adjudicator is done with them. They’ll be quick to tell the slaves there about the massacre of their fellow escapees. And they’ll tell them that the dead were left intact so the souls would come back to be ensnared forever.”

Isaam shuddered. “I understand the policy now.”

“Use their own beliefs against them.”

“The Order needs hundreds more slaves to rebuild Iverton.” Isaam rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “Perhaps we should not kill so many; we could bring back many more for labor.”

Bera made a growling sound in her throat. “My orders were to spare only a few, so the tale of the mass killing could be spread, so slaves elsewhere will know that escape only leads to death and damnation.” She gestured to the northeast. “Already ogres and minotaurs work to gather more slaves for the Order. They look to the north, where your magic says the escaped slaves did not go.”

“Yes. That is correct.”

“Good.”

Isaam studied Bera for several moments. “I think you are enjoying this assignment.”

“Yes, old friend.” Revenge, Bera thought, vengeance for my father. Vengeance for the Order. “On many levels. Slaves dishonor the Order by escaping.” Bera clenched her hands so tightly that they ached. “It cannot be tolerated.”

“And renegade Dark Knights …”

“They are even worse,” Bera corrected. “No traitors to the Order should escape punishment. They must be hunted down too.”

Isaam pointed toward the fire. Zoccinder stood with his back to it, staring at them. After a moment, he started walking their way. Isaam got to his feet.

“The wizard too,” Isaam said.

“Grallik N’sera,” Bera said.

Isaam pulled an empty bottle from a pocket of his robe. “This is all I have to follow him with, all that was salvaged from where he lived in Iverton. The ink in it has dried, and the top is melted. But Grallik N’sera used it, and so I am using it too.” He replaced the bottle. “It is enough of a link that I can scry upon him. It and my spells tell me he is still with the goblins. In these mountains, somewhere, Commander. These vast, vast mountains.”

Bera stood too, eyes on Zoccinder, who had come up close to them, ignoring Isaam even as she spoke to him. “But not with this group of goblins.”

Isaam shrugged. “Unfortunately, no.”

“Then we resume our search at first light,” Bera commanded. “Would that your magic were more precise, old friend. Would that it could lead us directly to him.”

Isaam took that as a dismissal and headed toward the fire, giving Zoccinder a wide berth. The big knight turned to watch the wizard, then turned back to face Bera.

“Commander?”

“What do you want, Zoccinder? It is late, and the men are settling down for-”

He bent and his warm breath tickled her forehead.

For a moment, Bera considered berating him for his insolence.