Death March

THE TYLOR

Dragon! Dragondragondragon!” called the goblin named Knobnose, a potbellied youngster whose yellow skin marked him as one of Saro-Saro’s clan. He stood on the ridge, pointed down to the huge beast at the base of the foothills, jumped, and waggled his fingers. “Dragondragondragon!” he repeated, spittle flying from his quivering lips.

“That’s not a dragon,” Spikehollow said. He shoved Knobnose back so the youngster wouldn’t tumble down the ridge; then he motioned the first wave of goblins forward. “But it might as well be a dragon for its size,” he added to himself. He drew a deep breath, swallowed hard, and brandished a long knife he’d taken days past from a dying Dark Knight. “Be fast! Be deadly!”

Spikehollow’s feet slapped against the stone as he whooped and urged more than one hundred of his fellows to follow. Their cries of “Be fast! Be deadly!” rose to a deafening din, and the gravel crunched under their heels as they barreled down the ridge toward the beast.

It made no move to flee.

The sky was copper from the late-afternoon sun, and it painted the goblins and the ground with broad, shimmering strokes, blending everything into earthen hues, including the creature they swarmed toward.

It stretched more than sixty feet from snout to stubby tail tip, with a mottled brown hide that made it look like a huge living hill. Its toes were as big around as tree trunks. And it had thick, blunt talons the color of eggshells that were split along the edges from digging in the hard ground. Its curved horns gleamed white like a bull’s, and its head looked vaguely like a dragon’s but was too wide and short. Its saucer-shaped eyes were set in the front of its skull, rather than perched toward the sides where a real dragon’s would be. When it moved, there was a flash of green along its flanks and at the base of its tail.

“A green dragon,” Grallik observed from the top of the ridge. A second wave of goblins descended, at least two hundred. The wizard leaped back to keep from getting swept up in the rush.

“That is not a green dragon,” Horace said after another group went hollering down the rise. The priest stood farther back from the edge, a safer perch. He shook his head and pulled his lower lip into his mouth. “It is a tylor, Grallik. Not a dragon.”

The wizard made a growling sound. “I know that, Horace. It is a spawn of a dragon and a hatori. Aye, a tylor. The Dark Knights had one hatori in Steel Town, which they forced to dig tunnels. The hatori escaped during the quake, slaying knights and goblins in its wake. In fact, Horace, I suspect …” The rest of the wizard’s words were drowned out by the thunder of more goblin and hobgoblin feet pounding against the trail and over the side, the whooping and yelling growing to a painful cacophony.

The beast watched the oncoming waves with mild interest. More than half of Direfang’s force was streaming toward it.

It laid its ears back and opened its maw, revealing a long black tongue and jagged teeth that looked like broken chunks of charred wood. It bellowed, the sound cutting through the chorus of goblin shouts, and it lumbered back from the base of the hill, allowing the horde more room to swarm around it.

Away from the shadow of the hill, more green scales showed. Interspersed with the brown patches, it made the creature look like a massive piece of rotting meat. It had that sort of foul stench, which wafted up the ridge to Grallik and Horace and made them gag.

“An abomination!” Grallik shouted, his voice sounding like a croaking whisper. He coughed, his shoulders bouncing from the strength of the spasm. He’d developed the cough in Steel Town, and it lingered even though they were miles from the place. “That’s what it is, priest, an utter abomination, a monster that should not exist!”

The priest shook his head again and mouthed something the wizard could not hear.

Below, the tylor’s neck stretched, and its jaws opened and snapped shut with a speed that startled the horde. Its teeth pierced one goblin, then another, and it threw its head back greedily as it swallowed them.

Suddenly dozens of goblins and hobgoblins shrieked in terror and fled from it, letting their knives and swords slip from their sweat-slick fingers.

“Feyrh!” they shouted. Flee!

On the rise, Direfang stared in disbelief.

“It is a rare creature of magic, Foreman. The tylor’s second skin is fear,” Horace said.

Direfang had to strain to hear the priest’s words. The hobgoblin leader had moved up between the two Dark Knights. He still held Graytoes, who continued to whimper. Anxious goblins crowded around him and the Dark Knights. Direfang had held many of the goblins back from the fight; they were too young or too old or weaponless. The hobgoblin leader had remained behind only because of Graytoes.

“Explain, skull man,” Direfang shouted. He scowled at the goblins continuing to flee and gestured futilely at those scrambling back up the ridge. They ignored him, continuing to climb.

Horace screamed to be heard above the din, the panic, and the thunderous growl of the tylor. “It is part dragon, and so it exudes magic! Fear! It terrifies your army with a thought. You were a fool to order it attacked, your rumbling bellies be damned! It will kill them all!”

“Then help, skull man,” Direfang shot back. He held Graytoes with one arm, his free hand shooting out to clamp itself around Horace’s neck. “Help now!”

Horace tried to wriggle free of the hobgoblin’s grip, but Direfang only squeezed tighter.

“Wizard, help too!” Direfang bellowed. “Burn that thing or die to it!” He made a gesture as though threatening to push the wizard off the ridge. “Use the fire magic.”

“Can’t breathe,” Horace managed to gasp. “Can’t …”

Direfang relaxed his grip on the priest only slightly. Horace gulped in as much air as he could, like a drowning man rising to the surface, and began gesturing with his fingers, pointing down the rise toward the goblins fleeing from the tylor. He tried to explain what he was doing, but only a croaking sound came out.

“He’s stopping them from running, the goblins,” Grallik supplied. “He’s giving them courage.”

“Fire, wizard. Now! Use the fire magic!”

Grallik brushed his hair out of his eyes and stared at the great beast below. Goblins lay dead around its front claws; three more were dying in its jaws. It tossed its head back and forth as it chewed, and even from that distance, Grallik could see the pleased gleam in its eyes.

“Not for much longer will you feast, abomination,” Grallik hissed. He thrust his hands forward, angled down, thumbs touching. His left hand looked wet, the scars thick on it and glistening from his sweat. A moment more and his pale skin glowed yellow, then white. Fire crackled along his fingers and arced down like lightning to strike the tylor’s head.

Flame danced around the beast’s jaws and settled on its tongue. It howled and reared back on stunted legs, its front legs flailing and its stubby tail twitching.

Grallik repeated the spell, striking the armored plates of its stomach, turning the fire white-hot and causing the beast’s natural armor to sizzle and pop.

The goblins who had not yet fled in fear redoubled their efforts, massing close to the creature and stabbing viciously with the knives and swords they’d taken from Steel Town, jumping back to avoid the fire and the claws and darting in again.

The goblins and hobgoblins who had scattered in flight stopped running and turned to stare, bolstered by the priest’s magic. Some shook their heads as if they’d been awakened from a bad dream. Spikehollow was among that group, and he blinked furiously and vomited from the stench of the burning tylor.

Above, the priest mouthed a prayer to Zeboim and tried once more to pull himself out of Direfang’s grip, that time successfully.

“Sea Mother,” Horace blurted, “give them strength and courage.” There were other words he might utter, but they were much softer and not meant for the hobgoblin’s ears. Then his voice rose again. “Fill their hearts with courage, their blood with ire. Help them … by the goddess!”

Below, the beast shimmered; then suddenly it vanished. A heartbeat later it reappeared a hundred or so feet to the west. It whirled to face the goblins that immediately charged toward it again. Then it raised its head and locked eyes with the priest on the ridge.

Horace trembled. “I told you, Foreman, it is a creature of magic, that tylor. Smart, too, and far more than your little friends can deal with. It could-”

The tylor roared and iridescent waves rolled out of its maw, striking the ridge and shattering it where Direfang, Graytoes, and the Dark Knights stood. Horace and Grallik dropped with the collapsing rise. Direfang, Graytoes, and the rest of the goblins fell at the same time, choking dust billowing everywhere.

Fist-sized rocks pounded the wizard and the priest as they tried to scramble to their feet. Grallik could find no purchase and clumsily somersaulted down to the bottom, cutting himself on jagged shards and opening the gash on his arm even wider. A coughing fit struck him as his shoulders slammed against the ground, and he sucked in a mouthful of dirt and stone dust.

Suddenly hands pulled him up, and more slapped at his back. Direfang and another hobgoblin had come to his aid, the latter chattering at him in the ugly, clacking language of goblinkind.

“Breathe, wizard,” Direfang growled.

When Grallik was able to do just that, Direfang grabbed his shoulders and whirled him around to face the tylor, which, down below, was busy ripping through one goblin after the next.

“Fire magic, wizard. Use it now!”

Something raspy and unintelligible came out of Grallik’s mouth. He spat, tasting only dirt and blood, his tongue flailing around amid broken teeth. The wizard’s head pounded, and the right side of his face felt warm and wet; his blond hair was matted with blood and sweat on his forehead, hanging down in his eyes. He tried to look around to see what had happened to Horace, but Direfang forced him to return his gaze to the tylor.

“Now!” Direfang growled louder. “Now or die!”

It wasn’t that the hobgoblin would kill him, Grallik realized, as he called up one of his more familiar fire spells. It was that if he didn’t act, the tylor would kill them all.

Concentrating, he sent a thin column of flame lashing down on the beast’s back. Not enough to penetrate its scaly hide and hurt it very much, but enough to distract it from its goblin feast. Direfang’s army took advantage of Grallik’s spell and swarmed in tighter, stabbing fast and furious, desperately.

A dozen feet behind the wizard, Horace was struggling to pick himself up. The priest’s bare chest and arms were covered with welts and cuts from his plunge down the shattered ridge. One eye was swelling shut, and a few ribs were broken, making it painful to breathe.

“Zeboim, mother goddess, save us,” he whispered. He held his right arm in close, clutching his broken ribs, while he gingerly sucked the dust-choked air into his lungs and began a spell.

Around the priest young goblins were picking themselves up, some crying, the rest too frightened to make a sound. One who looked barely old enough to walk hung tightly to Horace’s leg. A few could not raise themselves up because they were dead or dying, and their fellows stared around sadly at them.

“Tottle is not moving,” one goblin said.

“Tottle will never move again,” another said sadly.

“Three-toes is dying, and Drak and Bosky too,” a slight female wailed.

“Mother goddess,” Horace croaked, trying futilely to speak louder than the goblins milling around him. “She who is called the Darkling Sea, the Maelstrom, Rann … turn the ground beneath the tylor’s feet to blessed, thick mud.”

Sweat beaded thick on the priest’s face as he forced all of his energy into the enchantment. A moment later the glow ran from him like melting butter, settling in a spreading pool around his feet.

At the same time, the earth softened beneath the massive claws of the tylor, and slowly the creature began to sink.

“Zeboim, mother goddess, she who is called Zebir Jotun, Zura the Maelstrom, and Zyr, now turn the ground beneath its feet to stone.” The glow around Horace’s feet brightened, scattering the young goblins who were able to move. “Mother goddess, stone, I pray!” He sank to his knees, spent, and pitched forward, his face buried in the dirt and scree. The glow faded, and the young goblins carefully returned, poking and prodding the priest, one beckoning an elder goblin to come close.

At the same time, the hobgoblin took a step toward the tylor. “The skull man’s magic!” Direfang yelled. “Take advantage! Slay the monster while it cannot move!”

Behind Direfang, Grallik struggled to his feet. “I’ve nothing left,” he said to himself. Despite that, he started gesturing feebly at the beast, desperately trying to summon more magic.

The tylor had dropped into the soft earth, covering up the first joints on its legs. Several goblins were caught in its sinking, and their shrill screams sliced through the air, suddenly, as the ground turned as hard as granite and trapped them as surely as the tylor. The beast screamed its rage, and tried to shimmer as it had before, when it moved itself magically.

But the huge beast went nowhere; it was trapped by the priest’s spell. It struggled to pull itself free of the stone. Its thrashing head bludgeoned those goblins closest to it, snapping backs and necks. Then cracks appeared in the stone at its front feet, and a great ball of flame engulfed it, the whooshing noise drowning out the tylor’s bellows and the surrounding goblins’ screams.

The stench of burning flesh became unbearable as the fire died out almost as quickly as it had materialized. The goblins trapped in stone around the tylor had been incinerated, their smoldering corpses competing with the reek from the tylor’s singed hide.

Still, the beast was not dead.

“More fire, wizard!” Direfang barked.

Another hobgoblin slapped Grallik on the back for emphasis. “Do what Direfang says.”

“More fire now!” Direfang looked to the ground at his feet, where Graytoes lay whimpering. Abruptly he vaulted over her and drew his sword, one he’d taken from a Dark Knight he’d slain in the mining camp. He raced forward, roaring a battle cry, leaping over rubble and broken and dead goblins, hollering for his surviving kinsmen to join him.

“I’ve no fire left to give,” Grallik muttered. But somehow the wizard was able to stand erect, focus his energy, and hurl another fiery lance, aimed straight at the tylor’s open mouth. He had strength left for one more lance, which missed the mark and instead struck the beast’s jaw. Then Grallik sagged back against a lean hobgoblin.

Grallik coughed deeper, the hacking spasm painful, and he looked around, again searching for the priest. Grallik wanted Horace to tend to him, but he saw the priest was lying on his stomach, young goblins hovering nearby and jabbing at him. “Dead?”

The wizard glanced up to what was left of the ridge, seeing more goblins streaming down, including Mudwort and the one he thought was named Boliver. The two had been watching from a high perch, out of reach of the tylor’s rock-shattering breath.

A sharp intake of air drew Grallik’s attention back to the tylor. It was ready to loose another one of those earth-rending breaths, and the wizard flattened himself against the ground in preparation for the blast. But the tylor angled its head down, sending the shimmering waves to break apart the stone that gripped it.

“Be fast! Be deadly!” Direfang shouted as he closed. The cry was repeated by hundreds of goblins in the swarm until the words swelled to a roar that echoed off the mountains and added to the hellish din.

The hobgoblin leader raced straight toward the tylor’s snapping mouth, his sword pointed like a lance and his free hand waving the goblins in front of him out of his path. Direfang threw back his head and howled something in the goblin tongue. An instant later he drove the sword into the beast’s tongue, the blade sinking through to its bottom jaw and lodging there. Unable to pull the sword free, Direfang snatched up a knife lying by a goblin corpse and darted to the beast’s side, barely missing a blow from its wildly swinging head.

Direfang scrambled over stone that was breaking apart at the tylor’s feet, jumped in to strike powerfully with his knife, and leaped back.

“It is free!” That came from Spikehollow, who was wielding two long knives dripping red with the tylor’s blood. “Be fast! Be deadly, Direfang! The monster is loose!”

The tylor shimmered brightly, and Direfang and Spikehollow charged in unison, stabbing repeatedly at its side and finding that the mottled green-brown patches were softer. They worked at a frenzied pace, urging their fellows to do the same, all caught up in the bloodlust.

The beast started to fade, and for a moment it seemed that it would disappear and shift away to safety, but Direfang continued his relentless assault, as did Spikehollow and the others.

Then the tylor stopped shimmering and opened its maw and released an ear-splitting howl so loud and painful that it dropped the nearest goblins to their knees. Direfang momentarily lost his grip on the knife, pressed his palms against his ears, squeezed his eyes shut, and stumbled back.

Another lance of fire shot down, and the tylor crumpled.

“It is dead!” Saro-Saro cried. “The dragon is dead!” The cagey old goblin had remained at the edge of the throng, standing on a mound of rubble from the collapsed ridge. He continued to shout, but the cheering of hundreds of his kinsmen blotted out all other sounds.

Saro-Saro climbed down from the rubble and pushed his way through the press of goblins. Age granted him respect, and his kinsmen moved aside. Spikehollow helped him to climb up on the tylor’s side. The old, yellow-skinned goblin balanced on the beast’s shoulder, raised his arms, and waited for the clamor to subside. It took several moments.

“A feast this night,” Saro-Saro began, waiting again until the cheers dwindled. “A feast in the memory of fallen friends.” He pointed to the bodies scattered around the tylor. He patted his stomach and lowered his head as if in reverence.

“A feast!” Spikehollow echoed. “Saro-Saro calls for a feast!”

Direfang watched the old goblin pontificate atop the dead beast. Direfang’s head pounded from all the noise, and he ached all over, though he knew his injuries were not so bad as many of his fellows’.

He spotted a young goblin named Chima cradling a broken arm, her dark orange skin marking her as a member of the Flamegrass clan.

Another goblin of the same clan, Olabode, rocked back and forth on his hips, bottom lip held between his teeth to prevent him from crying out. A piece of bone jutted up through his thigh.

All around, others were nursing similar and worse wounds.

“Priest!” Direfang called, craning his neck this way and that. “Skull man! It is time to render aid!”

But Horace did not answer and was nowhere to be seen.