Death March

THE BLACK SPOTS

Horace’s dark skin gleamed with sweat. It wasn’t from the sickness, but from exertion. He’d been tending ailing goblins for so many hours that he was nearly at the point of collapse. He was numb all over, and his legs felt like lead weights.

At least the Hunter’s Ridge clan had not come down with the illness, nor any goblins from the other two clans that had joined them that morning. That was curious, the priest reflected, and might be important. He was too tired to think about it, though.

He stood propped against an old maple, Direfang in front of him, scowling and muttering in the goblin tongue. After a few moments, he spoke slowly so Horace could more easily understand him.

“Not done yet today, skull man,” the hobgoblin leader grumbled. “Not close to done. There are many more-”

“No, Foreman, I’m not done. I’ll well admit that. But I do need a break, a brief rest. And I need to see to myself or there’ll be no helping any of you. If I catch this malady, there’ll be no more healing to give.”

Despite Direfang’s snarl, the priest raised a glowing hand to his own chest and mumbled a prayer to Zeboim. “Goddess, grant me strength,” he breathed. “Keep me well so that I can serve these creatures’ health.” He placed his fingers over his heart, and the glow melted into his skin, radiating up his neck and down his arms and traveling to the waistband of his tattered leggings.

His chest rose and fell more rapidly as the glow brightened, and he gasped for breath. The hobgoblin stepped forward, ready to catch him. But Horace waved him away. His breathing slowed after a few moments, and he tilted his head up, finding something in the branches to stare at.

“Sea Mother, I am your humble servant and …” Horace continued his prayer, his voice rising and falling as his fingers danced over his skin.

Direfang stepped back and shook his head.

“You disapprove of Horace tending to himself?” That came from Grallik. The wizard had come up behind him, leading the three goats that used to be in Kenosh’s care. He looked with distaste at the animals tethered to his wrist and let out a sigh when they dropped their heads to munch on the grass at his feet.

“This Mother Goddess-”

“Ah, that’s what you disapprove of, Foreman Direfang. You don’t believe in the gods. None of your kind do, it seems.”

Direfang shrugged.

“What matters is that the skull man is mending the goblins for you. And what he’s doing now, Foreman, is bolstering his body against whatever disease ravages them.”

The light was thin, filtering through the maples and oaks, and it made the leaves and branches look brittle. The forest had narrowed and changed considerably along that section of the river; the pines had all but disappeared. There was more space between the trunks, and trillium and ferns covered most of the floor. Along a branch of the river that split and pointed to the west, beavers had built a dam. But the little creatures were long gone, and the mound of twigs and mud was falling apart. The hobgoblin took a deep breath, smelling the moldiness of the rotting dam and finding it far preferable to rotting goblin flesh and the smell of the Dark Knights.

Direfang looked away from the priest and stared at a dying black willow, its bare branches dangling over the river and over the many goblins lying beneath it. Thirty-seven, he counted, all of them in various stages of the bad sickness. Spikehollow was one of the worst of the victims. Direfang watched as the young goblin coughed fiercely and tried to retreat deeper into the once-colorful quilt that had become stained with blood and mud. Swollen black spots were clearly evident on his neck. The hobgoblin could see more black spots on those who did not have the benefit of blankets to cover them. There were spots on legs and under armpits, along their waists-everywhere on their bodies, it seemed.

The hobgoblin shuddered and looked back to the priest. He breathed deep again, but he couldn’t catch the moldy scent of the dam anymore. He could only smell his rotting charges.

“The sick need more help,” Direfang said, interrupting Horace’s prayer. “Need more help right now. Pray to your goddess, tend to yourself, but be fast.” The priest had finished with his own ministrations; the glow was gone and his hands had relaxed at his sides. “Some are dying, skull man. Be fast and be good.”

Horace met Direfang’s gaze. The priest’s red-rimmed eyes looked small on his fleshy face, but there was something hopeless in them that sent a shiver down the hobgoblin’s spine.

“I know some are dying, Foreman. I’m not blind.” Horace crossed his arms in front of his chest. “And you must know I have done-and will continue to do-my very best not because you demand it, but because Zeboim does.”

Direfang opened his mouth to say something, but Horace cut him off.

“This is a profound sickness, Foreman. And not even the healing that comes from the Sea Mother may be enough. Divine magic cannot cure everything.” He paused and looked over toward the black willow. “Do you understand that? Do you?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “There are some illnesses that magic simply cannot defeat. It is as if the gods have decreed that-”

“Goblins do not believe in the gods.”

“Aye, Foreman,” Horace said. “You’ve mentioned that to me on more than one occasion.”

“That dwarf …”

“In Reorx’s Cradle?” Horace still watched the sick goblins under the tree. He had thought about the dwarf too. “The old one, you mean, who cursed us all and begged her god to send us to the deepest pit in the Abyss? The one who rendered your maps?”

“Yes, that one.”

“I believe in the gods, Foreman Direfang. But I do not believe any mortal can call down such a malady. That dwarf, she is not responsible for this sickness, and neither is her god, Reorx.” He wrung out his big hands and pushed away from the trunk. “I will be famished when I am done for the day.”

“Pippa will bring you some food,” Direfang said. “And skull man?”

Horace paused.

“Be fast with the magic. Make the goblins well.”

The priest shuffled over to the black willow and knelt next to Spikehollow. “Sea Mother,” he began.

“Best to keep your distance from the sick, Foreman Direfang,” Grallik advised the hobgoblin leader, putting an arm out to stop him from following Horace. “Wouldn’t do for you to succumb to the black spots.”

Direfang raised an eyebrow, as much as asking “Why would you care?”

“I’d not fancy being led around by that old yellow goblin,” said Grallik, meeting his eyes.

“Saro-Saro,” Direfang supplied.

“He seems an ill-tempered soul.”

“With no tolerance for Dark Knights,” Direfang added.

Grallik dug the ball of his foot into the ground and grimaced. Both of his boots were falling apart. “Yes, Foreman. I feel I would be safer with you. I fear that old yellow goblin will not realize how useful I can be. His indifference worries me. And his ambition.”

Direfang cocked his head.

“And his contempt for magic, save for what Horace offers,” Grallik further explained.

“Goblins hate Dark Knights for good reason,” Direfang said. “Saro-Saro has good reasons too.” He waved a hand to indicate he was finished talking to the wizard and headed toward the river, pulling his tunic up as he went.

“Wait, Foreman.”

Direfang slowed but did not stop.

“I know of a much shorter way to the Qualinesti Forest,” said Grallik, hurrying to follow the hobgoblin leader. “Shorter, safer. Certainly a shorter journey than even to the Plains of Dust.”

Direfang turned. He held his tunic loosely in one hand, shaking the dirt from it.

“Mudwort found the way, actually, though she didn’t realize it at first. She and that bumpy, brown-skinned-”

“Boliver.”

“Yes, the other night in fact. They found a much shorter way with that spell they cast. I was part of that spell, remember.”

Direfang snarled. “This faster way, wizard,” he said skeptically. “What is it?”

Grallik tugged the goats to follow him as he walked along with the hobgoblin. “It will take a little explaining.”

Horace’s face was a stoical mask. He’d learned long ago not to let patients see his concern; it only added to their worries and worsened their chances of recovery. But he almost couldn’t help himself after easing himself down next to Spikehollow and touching the back of his hand to the goblin’s forehead.

He almost yanked his hand away. “So hot, you are.”

Spikehollow’s eyes fluttered, and his head turned slowly as though he were trapped in a bad dream. His fingers wrapped around the top of the quilt, clenching and unclenching.

Horace tucked his chin close to his chest and prayed in Ergothian, wanting no one else to hear his desperate words. “Sea Mother, such a sickness I have never tended. This could well be beyond me. Sea Mother, hear my-”

Nearby, a brown-skinned goblin coughed so hard that his body shook against the ground. He turned onto his back and vomited a spray of blood that spattered against Spikehollow and the priest. Tremors wracked the goblin’s thin body, and Horace briefly stopped his work on Spikehollow and turned to aid the brown goblin. He moaned in pain and retched again, and Horace grabbed his shoulders and turned him onto his side so he would not choke on his own vomit. Then Horace tilted his head so he could breathe easier. The priest’s hands glowed orange, and he rattled off the words to a healing spell he’d been casting frequently-with diminishing results.

Blood seeped from the goblin’s mouth, though he stopped shaking as Horace’s spell progressed.

“Shad bleeds inside.” That was spoken by a yellow-skinned goblin propped against the trunk of the black willow. She had black spots on her neck, but they had not yet abscessed. An old, gray blanket was draped over her legs. She’d taken it from Bugteeth after he had died. “The sick is deep with Shad, isn’t it?”

She spoke in the goblin tongue, her voice so soft and raspy that Horace had to listen hard to pick out the meaning.

“A deep, deep sick, isn’t it, skull man?”

Horace nodded but kept his face a mask and slowly answered in her language. “Yes, this one is bleeding inside- his lungs. But my healing spell-”

“Shad will die, eh?”

The priest shook his head. “Not if I can help it.” His hands glowed bright, but the glow didn’t spread far across the brown-skinned goblin, as though the illness fought back against the priest. Horace redoubled his effort and was rewarded with a shower of blood when the goblin vomited again. The thin body shook once more, then stopped moving. Horace bowed his head and closed the goblin’s eyes.

“Shad is dead?”

Horace didn’t answer. He futilely tried to wipe the blood off his robe and hands and returned to Spikehollow. Horace was particularly concerned about that goblin, whose name he couldn’t remember, despite Direfang telling it to him more than once.

“The sunlight is too bright,” Spikehollow croaked. He raised an arm to shield his eyes. “Skull man, it is too, too bright. Painful.”

Horace looked up through the branches. The light was still thin and should not have bothered Spikehollow. But the disease seemed to make the goblins acutely sensitive to light and noise and temperatures, Horace reflected.

You were among the first to get sick. Why? Horace hadn’t spoken aloud; the question was in his thoughts. He didn’t think the goblin knew the answer any more than he did. What, the priest mused, do you have in common with the others? The answer might go a way toward healing you and stopping this from spreading further.

Horace stared at the goblin, then more closely at the quilt.

The others who were among the first sick also wore blankets and quilts taken from the Reorx’s Cradle, Horace realized. He recalled the ancient dwarf who had cursed him and all of the goblins for descending on their village; he couldn’t get those frightening words out of his head. Yet the priest could not believe that the sickness was Reorx’s doing. A god wouldn’t meddle in something as petty as goblins raiding such a small-

“Small village.” Horace’s eyes grew wide. Even Foreman Direfang had noted that there were far more homes than necessary for the number of dwarves living there. And the garden was much larger than was needed to support the population. The village had certainly been larger at one time, but it hadn’t shrunk because of dwarves moving away, as the priest had heard the goblins speculate.

The population had dwindled because of the sickness.

The ancient dwarf had tried to warn him at one point, when he was translating Direfang’s demands. But she stopped short, no doubt hoping all the goblins would catch the malady and die.

As some of them already had.

He stared at the patterns in Spikehollow’s quilt, not really seeing them, seeing instead the village with its too-many homes.

“Goblin, tell me what you’re feeling.” Horace spoke those words aloud, in the human tongue, having heard that goblin speak in the language of humans before. He didn’t want all the goblins under the tree to listen and understand their conversation.

“Head hurts,” Spikehollow began in Common. “Hurt for a few days now.” He coughed and a line of blood thickened over his lips. “Back hurts, arms and legs hurt … ache so bad. The light, it is much too bright. Hot, feel hot too. Very, very hot.”

Swallowing his fear and disgust, Horace examined the lumps on Spikehollow’s neck. They were hard, same as the ones under his arms. Black as coal, one had split open and was oozing blood and a greenish pus. He pulled back the quilt and saw that one lump on the goblin’s leg had grown to the size of an orange.

“By the Sea Mother,” he whispered. The mask of stoicism melted into a look of horror. In all his years working with the Dark Knights, and before that with the sailors on the coast of Southern Ergoth, Horace had seen nothing as terrifying as what lay before him. He fought to keep from retching, so horrid was Spikehollow’s appearance.

There was blood in the goblin’s urine and feces, blood pooling under his skin; black spots and painful-looking boils dotted his chest and upper arms. That close his stench was unbearable, and Horace finally lost his battle to ignore the stench, turning and emptying the contents of his stomach on the ground. Then he pulled the quilt back up so he would no longer have to look at the worst of Spikehollow’s lesions.

The priest wiped at his own lips. The goblin was feebly reaching under the quilt for something at his side and, after a moment’s work, pulled out a knife. Horace leaned back, thinking the goblin meant to kill him, angry that the curing spell had not worked. Instead, the goblin pressed the knife to his own chest.

“Don’t …” Horace began. The priest didn’t have to finish the warning. Spikehollow didn’t have the strength to end his own life.

“Hurts too bad,” Spikehollow gasped. Then the goblin’s fingers slipped from the pommel, and the knife fell aside. The goblin gave a great rasping breath, clutched at his throat, and died.

The priest stared glumly. Then he noticed the knife, snatched it up, found a scabbard under the quilt, and sheathed the small blade, putting it in the pocket of his leggings. The handle stuck out, but he hoped no one would notice that he’d acquired a weapon.

Horace worked well into the evening, spending his spells on those who were not yet so badly afflicted; they seemed to respond best to his divine magic. There had been nearly forty when he’d started that afternoon; he looked around and saw there were at least double that number of goblins who were hobbled by the sickness. By nightfall he’d given so much of himself that he could barely raise a hand, and he could no longer coax a healing glow. He stumbled away from the black willow and dropped to his knees on the riverbank.

The moon was high and bright and set the water to sparkling, but the priest couldn’t appreciate the beauty of the scene. Fire crackled behind him; the bodies of the dead were being burned in a clearing. He’d insisted that they be burned immediately-their clothes, their possessions, everything should join them in the fire. What couldn’t be burned had to be buried beneath the earth. He considered all the goblins scavengers, and he prayed to Zeboim that they had enough sense not to loot the diseased corpses for clothes and blankets.

Remembering, he reached in his pocket and pulled out the knife; the scabbard and the leather-wrapped pommel would also be thick with disease. He nearly tossed it into the river. Horace would be taking a chance if he kept something like Spikehollow’s knife, probably as disease-ridden as the dead goblin. He should throw it away, he knew.

Instead, he replaced it in his pocket; it was too precious a thing to give up. One knife would do nothing against that many goblins. But he wanted the knife so he could end his own life if the first symptoms of the disease appeared. Horace would not allow himself to suffer the way the sick goblins were suffering.

Horace listened to the river shush by as he slipped his hands into the cool waters to wash them off. A chorus of whistles and what sounded like birdsong rose. Frogs or toads or both, the happy noise was a relief compared to the moans of the sick and the wails of the mourners. He splashed water on his face and edged out into the shallows, nearly slipping on an algae-covered stretch of slate. He scrubbed his arms and chest and waded out until the river reached his waist. He felt the insistent tug of its current, and for a moment he considered wading out farther still until the current pulled him under and ended his despair.

He was a devoted man and believed that Zeboim would send his soul to the place where spirits drift for a pleasant eternity. Death could well be preferable to his existence. Damn Grallik for talking him into their escapade! Better that the earthquakes had sucked him down or the volcanoes had buried him in ash. Better such a fate than watching the goblins suffer so and finding his divine magic impotent.

Yet the soothing waters revived him a little.

He stood in the shallow part of the river for quite some time, his back to the goblins and eyes cast down at the moon’s reflection. After a while his head bobbed forward, and he felt impossibly weary. He could fall asleep right there and drift away down the river. Again, he thought, drowning might not be so bad.

But for some reason Zeboim had tasked him with his terrible situation, had indeed nudged him to follow Grallik in his mad plan to join the goblins. If the Sea Mother had put him on his course, he had little choice but to see things through.

He returned to the bank. His wet leather leggings clung like a second skin and made his legs feel heavier still. Even in the moonlight, he could tell the river had not washed all the blood out of the leather. He should burn the leggings; they were no doubt thick with the disease. But he had nothing else to wear. As tattered and germ ridden as they were, they were all he had. And his pride would not allow him to go naked among the savages, those goblins.

Horace let the water run off him and focused once more on the trills and melodic croaks of the frogs. The breeze cooled and energized him.

“Zebir Jotun, Zura the Maelstrom,” he began. His fingers glowed orange as he returned to the black willow and the goblins beneath it. He eyed the closest ones, evaluating which to try to work on next. “By the silvery hair of the precious Sea Mother … no!”

Horace had healed him just the day before, thought for certain he’d erased the last vestige of disease. Yet there he was again; it was Kenosh, stretched out between a goblin and a hobgoblin.

The Dark Knight coughed deeply and shivered. And even in the shadows of the dead tree, the priest saw the black spots on the man’s face.