Goblin Nation

DEAD SILENCE

Nine hundred knights: Bera hadn’t led so many into battle before.

She walked at the front of the column, her most seasoned scout, Tavor, at her side, Zocci a few paces behind, Isaam next. The rest followed four or five across, the trees too close for them to march in a regular formation. She kept the pace measured because of the sorcerer; she needed his cooperation, and it wouldn’t do to either have him fall behind and get lost or to make him so exhausted that he couldn’t cast a single spell.

Her knights would be more than enough to slaughter any number of goblins. But she might need Isaam’s magic against Grallik. And she would need his spells to record, for posterity and her superiors, the obliteration of the goblins and the-

“Traitor,” she hissed, thinking of Grallik. Her scout glanced at her, but she gestured for him to face forward.

“Landmarks,” she said needlessly. “Keep looking for them, Tavor. Find us something that corresponds to the map.”

She hated traitors and couldn’t stop thinking of Grallik.

The former Gray Robe was everything she despised in one half-elf package. He would die, like the goblins he’d fled the mining camp with, but he wouldn’t die easily. Maybe she’d use the traitor Horace to keep Grallik alive with healing spells so she could prolong the half-elf’s agony. That thought brought a slight smile to her lips. Maybe she’d kill the pathetic Horace first in full view of Grallik. And maybe she’d have the wizard burned alive-according to her reports, fire was his specialty.

How could he have turned his back on the Dark Knights?

The Order was everything to Bera-her heart, the code she lived by, and the family she’d adopted since joining the ranks. The knighthood had been good to her, giving her a purpose in life, and she’d earned her status; not a single award or medal had been a gift. Early in her career, she’d entertained the notion of rising to head the entire knighthood, or at the least leading the knights that reported to Neraka. That was a goal she’d let slip away through the years, considering it too lofty and unrealistic; she’d not had the opportunities to distinguish herself in that way, and up until that moment her actual rank had been modest.

But her mission might catch the right people’s attention. Her superiors were livid over the goblins’ escape. They were rats, simple slave labor, but they had slapped the knighthood in its collective face by killing their overseers at the mining camp and by going unpunished and roaming free. For the honor of the Order, they had to be caught and made an example of.

And if-when-she was successful, the Order might reward her with a high advancement in rank. At her age she might not get such an opportunity again to achieve and impress.

“Tavor?”

The scout shook his head. “No landmarks yet, Commander. But from the map, I still believe we are headed in the correct direction. This forest is so vast, though, it is hard to read.”

“Read it regardless,” she said. “And read it quickly.”

“We’re getting close, I can tell.” Tavor pointed to a cluster of high bushes surrounding a grove of trees. “Purple robe locust is on this map,” he said, “and weeping bottlebrush.”

The former grew fifty feet tall or more and was covered with spectacular clusters of purple and pink flowers that hung like grapes. The latter was the height of a man and profusely dotted with scarlet flowers on which a swarm of hummingbirds feasted.

Bera nodded approvingly. “I am surprised you know so much about trees. That’s not in your record, Tavor.”

“Rare plants, I’m interested in. And I’ve noticed several since we’ve been in this forest. The purple robe were atypical trees when the map was penned more than three decades ago. Not many of them then, so rarer still perhaps now. And see the dry bed?”

Bera remembered that the bed had been marked on the map, with a notation that a thin, straight river had dried up overnight. The ground cover stopped at the edge, the bottom of the river bed looked like fish scales baked in the sun. Even after thirty years, nothing had dared to grow or flow there.

“Does the map say what happened to the river?”

“A battle between two Qualinesti sorcerers, and the river lost.” The scout shrugged and replaced the map among his belongings. “We’re very close, Commander. I’ll wager that if the goblins are on the bluff, they’ll hear us coming soon.”

“We do make a considerable racket, don’t we?” Bera motioned to Isaam then glanced up as a hawk shot from a tree with a piercing cry, darting to the north and following a small flock of black birds. “Maybe we shouldn’t make so much noise, eh? We should not spook our quarry. It would be a shame if they scattered and we didn’t get them all. Every last little stinking one.”

The sorcerer rubbed at the bridge of his nose and let out a low breath. He leaned his weight on his right foot then his left; he’d told Bera the previous night how much his ankles were aching.

“You can make us quiet, old friend?”

“Commander, I can make us as quiet as death,” Isaam said. The sorcerer’s eyes rolled back until they looked like solid white stones.

Bera had seen her old friend perform that trick before, though not involving hundreds of soldiers. She could tell that her scout, and even Zocci, seemed unnerved by Isaam’s eerie mien.

The sorcerer’s mouth twitched, and his fingers spread, looking like knobby bird’s feet. His shoulders shook once; the sleeves that had been rolled up came loose and fell down over his skeletal-thin arms.

“No noise from metal,” Isaam whispered. His voice sounded hollow. “No words from flesh. No sounds from life.” Wispy tendrils extended from his fingertips, bearing the appearance of smoke but being too dark and heavy for it. The tendrils thickened and swirled around the sorcerer then floated to the ground, the effect of the enchantment leaving his skin looking ashen. He spoke more, but Bera couldn’t hear him. He threw his head back and appeared to shout; again, nothing could be heard.

Next, the vapors swirled around Bera’s feet. She sucked in a breath, not wanting to inhale the dark magic as it rose and spun around her. The tendrils played along her face as if a lover caressed her then disappeared in the locks of her hair, only to reappear behind her, traveling down her back and wafting over to Zocci.

The process took quite some time, the black fog covering one Dark Knight after the other, sometimes encompassing three or four at one time. Isaam glided along with the spell, directing it and making sure no knight was left out, not even the prisoner Horace. The ashen complexion marked each man and woman who was touched by the strange magic.

Bera thought they looked like the newly dead, their color having just fled but their flesh looking still pliant and warm. The magic was almost too effective. She couldn’t hear herself breathe, nor could she hear the swish of Isaam’s robe as he strode toward her, still only the whites of his eyes showing. When he took his place in the line behind Zocci, he blinked and his eyes turned normal.

Bera thunked her fingers against her breastplate-soundless. She tried to hear any of her men-nothing. She saw the branches moving from the breeze she felt wafting across her face, but there wasn’t even the faintest accompanying sound. There were plenty of birds in the trees-crows with their beaks opening and closing, jays preening, sparrows flitting from one branch to the next. A small red-tailed hawk worked at a nest in a lofty spot. It was strange not being able to hear any of the birds’ activity.

She raised her arm and motioned the knights forward. Bera had practically memorized the most recent map her scout used, which he claimed was three decades old. They had newer maps of sections along the coast and to the north, but that was not where their quarry was hiding.

Why the Qualinesti Forest? she asked herself for the hundredth time. Why did the goblins come there when they would have been safer, and their journey shorter, had they joined up with the established goblin territory in Northern Ergoth? She intended to keep one alive just long enough to ask that question and sate her curiosity.

It was unnatural, walking in silence. She missed the clink-clank of armor, the labored breathing of Isaam, the snapping branches, and the birdsong. With so many birds, she should hear them. Could Isaam hear, although the rest of them couldn’t?

For nearly an hour, they followed a path her scout had found. Tavor stopped occasionally, bending and nudging the dirt, turning over fallen leaves, and inspecting fern fronds and low bushes. She wanted to ask him what he was looking for and decided she’d never know. When battle came she’d forget all of that, the boring part of the hunt.

Tavor motioned for everyone to stay still, and he slipped ahead. It looked as if he were taking care how he walked-force of habit, as he wasn’t thinking about the silence spell. When he disappeared from view, Zocci brushed his hand against Bera’s neck. She jumped but quickly regained her composure, not turning around and keeping her eyes focused on where Tavor had gone.

Minutes passed, but Tavor did not return. Bera tapped her foot impatiently and flexed her fingers, cracking them without hearing the crack.

She felt another touch, on the back of her hand, the sensation softer: Isaam. He edged ahead of her and peered into the foliage, shrugging and shaking his head. Beads of sweat were thick on his brow and dripped off his nose. It was a warm day, but Bera suspected that maintaining the silent enchantment was what really put him under strain. He gestured at her, and she cocked her head, misunderstanding. He rolled his eyes in frustration, picked up a twig and snapped it: no sound.

Soon, he mouthed.

She understood. His spell was wearing thin. Very soon they would be clinking and clanking and rustling against the trees and bushes.

She raised her arm and motioned the men forward. Minutes later she reached the edge of a tree line and emerged onto a rise where the trees ahead had been considerably thinned. Stumps dotted a landscape that dropped gently away then rose to a bluff. She could hear the branches gently clicking, and she thought she could hear the rush of water-the river on the map.

“They’re gone,” Zocci said, gesturing. “The goblins are all gone.”

“But they were here,” Bera said.

The remains of small cooking fires were scattered across the ground, and here and there burned and broken logs were strewn. There were piles of leaves and twigs and ashes-plenty of evidence that a vast number had inhabited the place.

“Not a soul,” Isaam said.

Bera took a step forward. She didn’t like the look or the smell of the place. Death was in the air. The veteran of many battles, she recognized the sour-sweet of burned bodies. There was also a faint acrid scent she couldn’t identify at first.

“Chlorine.” Bera cupped her hand over her eyes. “Faint but evident. Why chlorine?” The sun was setting, yet it shone through gaps in the maples as an orange glare that made her squint.

“And death,” Isaam whispered. “But not so faint.”

“Aye, plenty of death. I noticed that.” Bera continued to study the ground. Though she wasn’t a tracker, she could tell it had been disturbed by a great many goblin feet swarming and marching. “And there is no sign of Tavor. Where is my scout?”

“Perhaps he went over the bluff, searching ahead.” That was said by Zocci. His expression was wary, troubled. “I’ll find him.” He moved ahead, long, measured strides that took him past a pile of charred wood. The wind scattered some of the ashes.

“They knew we were coming,” Isaam said. “Somehow they knew, and they fled.”

Bera sneered and motioned the men forward, making a circle with her hand to signal the soldiers to spread out and search. She remained back with Isaam. “Find out where they went, old friend. We’ll track them somehow with your magic. Your magic will serve us far better than our scouts. Focus on Grallik, find a way to poke a window in their blocking spell and … find them fast. We’ll follow them to the Abyss if we have to. I’ll not let this go. In fact …” Bera looked up into the trees, suddenly noticing something else that was weird.

“Birds,” she pronounced. “There are none here. Everywhere else in the forest but not here.” She cut Isaam a worried glance then said, “Zoccinder, bring everyone back right-”

One man screamed then another.