Goblin Nation

MEETING DIREFANG

Mudwort blinked furiously, looking all around. Where had the daylight gone? She preferred twilight to sunshine, her eyes saw better in the half-dark, so it wasn’t hard for her to sort through the shadows. Daylight had suddenly vanished.

And where were the trees?

For that matter, where was the grass and her prized spear?

Her stomach climbed up into her throat with the shocking realization that she was no longer in the magical clearing but was back inside the hated Dark Knight mines in Neraka.

In place of the beautiful spear, she held a rusty pickaxe. And instead of the fine Dark Knight shirt she’d fashioned into a tunic, she wore a reeking, threadbare rag that didn’t wholly cover her body. Mudwort’s feet were bare and calloused, her fingers calloused too. She ached all over, especially across her shoulders and down her back-where she always hurt the worst when she mined that damnable ore.

Had the spear been a dream?

“Sour mind, Mudwort has.” That was said by a gray-skinned goblin with a hump in the middle of his back. She’d seen him in the mines several times before, but she didn’t know his name. She never asked any of the workers their names, not wanting to be encumbered by friendship or even a passing conviviality. Names invited conversation, and Mudwort did not like to talk to her kinsmen.

“Sour mind. Talks to rocks. Talks to the pick. Talks to self. Sour, sour mind. Stinky mind.” The humpbacked one spit a gob of phlegm between his feet and faced the wall. Placing one hand on it for support, he raised his pick over a stooped shoulder and brought it sparking against the stone.

There were other goblins in the chamber. Six of them boasted gray skin like the humpbacked one; they called their clan Fellowship of Clay. Mudwort hadn’t asked for the clan name, she’d just heard it several times in reference to the gray-skins. Another six were red-skinned like herself, but it was a different shade of red and they belonged to another clan, one she didn’t know the name of. Thirteen goblins all told, including herself, were mining in one of the deepest chambers in a recently opened mineshaft.

The air there was stale and close, filled with the scent of ore, dirt, and stone, and coupled with the stench of goblins who had gone too long a time without being rained on. Mudwort longed for the fresh air of the clearing-even if that had been a dream.

There wasn’t a light in the chamber, but a bulky lantern hung just beyond the entrance, out in the long tunnel that led up to other chambers where more goblins mined. Its flame cast a hellish glow that caught suspended stone dust amid the murky background.

“Sour mind, Mudwort. Work. Work or die,” Humpbacked said.

She stretched her thin fingers to the wall and felt the vibrations of each pick striking the stone, hurting it. Mudwort couldn’t explain how she knew, but she knew that the stone was in pain from the miners chipping away at it and from the ore that ran through it like veins in a goblin’s body. She found the stone more interesting than the goblins and hobgoblins, and certainly more interesting than her Dark Knight enemies.

“Work or be whipped,” chimed in a red-skinned goblin.

Others also talked about her sour mind, but she ignored them, listening instead to the stone that complained beneath her fingertips. It was old, Mudwort sensed, older than anything, and it did not seem to mind that chunks of it filled with ore were being removed. The ore … itched … was the word Mudwort decided upon. But it did not like to be struck by the picks.

“There is no other way,” she told it as she struck the stone herself so everyone would stop staring at her. Mudwort was more precise, not just chipping away at the wall like the Fellowship of Clay clansmen. She struck only where the ore was, and the stone complained less and less as the hours went on.

Mudwort filled up one sack and lugged it up the tunnel. Sometimes goblins were stationed partway up, and they would take the sacks from the deeper-down workers. It was more efficient that way. But that day no goblins were waiting in the tunnel, so Mudwort had to struggle with the sack all the way up to the surface. Her legs burned by the time she rose above ground, and her eyes burned from the brightness of the midday sun. It glared down on dusty, desolate, ugly Steel Town, a place she had come to hate almost as much as she hated the Dark Knights.

She dropped the sack just beyond the entrance and stared down at the horrid excuse for a city. Rows of Dark Knights stood at attention, reciting their Oath or Measure or whatever they were calling it. Wasted words drifted up to her lofty position.

“Work or die.” That was barked by a Dark Knight stationed at the mine entrance just behind her. He said the words in goblinspeak; a smattering of the knights knew just enough goblinspeak to help them order the slaves around. “Work or die.”

She grumbled and trudged back down the tunnel, taking a fresh sack with her. Too many goblins worked that day. When she’d watched the knights below, she’d also caught a glimpse of the slave pens. There were always goblins there, as the knights worked the slaves in shifts. But there weren’t as many as normal, meaning that the shifts would be longer and the breaks shorter or nonexistent with more goblins mining. The knights needed the ore for something urgent-a battle maybe, Mudwort thought.

“Bring the dream back,” she said as she returned to the chamber and snatched up her pick again. She wanted to be back in the orderly clearing with the magical spear and all the wonderful smells around her and the promise of blueberries nearby to fill her stomach. She didn’t want such a wretched reality.

She touched her fingers to the wall again, searching for the spot where the stone itched the most. Retrieving the best and most chunks of ore brought rewards, and that might mean a shorter shift.

“Nervous,” she muttering to herself, sensing what the stone felt. “Itchy, but nervous more. Anxious and worried.” Mudwort squatted and touched the floor; she didn’t get the same feelings from that stone. Moving around the chamber and ignoring taunts of “Sour-minded s’dard,” she touched the stone again and again.

She circled back to the first spot, near where the humpbacked goblin still worked. He used two hands on the pick handle, swinging it clumsily, for he was tired.

“Stone is nervous here,” she told him. “Don’t like the feeling. It is worried. It is weak.” Her eyebrows rose, realizing she was right; that was what the wall was trying to tell her. “Weak like an old, old goblin. Brittle.”

The humpbacked gray-skin spit another gob of phlegm, shook his head, and struck the wall harder.

Mudwort waved her arm to get his clansmen’s attention. “This wall will break,” she announced. “This ceiling will fall. It is weak like an old, old goblin.”

“The only thing weak is Mudwort’s mind.” The humpbacked goblin sneered. “Sad, sour mind. Go away, Mudwort.”

“Work or die.” That said by a hobgoblin Mudwort had not seen in the mines before. Obviously a foreman, as he wore a whip at his side; he stood in the center of the chamber, slightly stooped because he was taller than the ceiling was high.

An unsightly hobgoblin, he wore a rotting ear hanging on a leather thong around his neck … and was missing one of his own ears. It had been cut off, or bit off in a fight, and so he was wearing it as punishment. He had a few old scars and a few fresh ones. His eyes were as dark as coal and fixed on Mudwort.

“Work or die,” he repeated.

Mudwort nearly obeyed, thinking she might head for the opposite wall and away from the one she somehow knew would collapse. Instead she puffed out her small chest, gesturing behind her.

“The stone is nervous,” she informed the hobgoblin. “It is frail and will fall. The ceiling will come down and squash the Fellowship of Clay. The stone will-”

The hobgoblin irritably waved her silent and went over to the offending wall, tugging back the gray-skinned goblin and his clansmen. He dutifully inspected the stone then shrugged, returned to the center of the chamber, and ordered them all back to work.

With a shrug Mudwort went over to the opposite wall, finding a spot to work between two red-skinned goblins, who made it clear they were not happy with her presence. She found a section where the stone was itchy, where she thought it would be safe. She worked fast, even though her arms and back protested.

“Work or die,” she muttered. “Work and die.”

She’d just managed to fill her ore sack and reach the entrance to the chamber when, behind her, she heard a sharp crack followed instantly by a rumble. She jumped ahead and scurried up, dragging her sack; to leave it would be to risk punishment. Shouts followed, and there came another rumble, though fainter. Mudwort coughed. Stone dust filtered into the tunnel from where the ceiling had collapsed.

Two red-skinned goblins pressed by her, waving their hands in front of their faces and coughing worse than Mudwort. One turned and pointed a finger at her.

“Mudwort did something to make the ceiling fall. Mudwort killed Gobber.”

So finally Mudwort knew the name of the humpbacked goblin. “Gobber will be remembered,” she told the red-skinned goblin, who shook his fist and hurried away.

Mudwort walked slower up the tunnel, as the imminent danger had passed. Two more red-skinned goblins passed her by, followed by another who was helping his limping kinsman. Moments later five gray-skinned goblins came up the tunnel. After them came the hobgoblin, who cradled the broken body of Gobber.

The hobgoblin paused at the intersection of another tunnel. The ceiling was taller there, with thick beams used for holding lanterns and ropes. The hobgoblin foreman stared down at Mudwort.

“Said the ceiling would fall.”

“Mudwort.”

“Mudwort said the ceiling would fall.”

“The stone said so. It was nervous. Told that one, I did.” She pointed to the corpse. “Didn’t believe, though. Now Gobber is dead. Told-”

“Direfang,” he supplied.

“But Direfang did not listen either.”

“Listening now,” he said. “Listening very closely.”

Direfang followed Mudwort out of the mine and down the trail that led to the slave pens. East of the pens was a scorched piece of earth that had three goblin bodies lying on it. The hobgoblin carefully laid down the dead Gobber.

“Mudwort talks to stone?”

She shrugged and looked up at the mountain, wondering if she would be sent back inside, hoping more that the dream would return of the clearing and the beautiful spear and dead Thya.

He repeated his question.

She made a huffing sound and shook her head. “No. Mudwort does not talk to the stone. The stone talks to Mudwort.”

He looked after her from that day forward, forcing her to eat when she hadn’t taken food in a while, bringing her water-and sometimes giving her an extra ration of water on particularly hot afternoons. It wasn’t just her that he took care of, she noticed. Though he was every bit the foreman the Dark Knights demanded he be, and though he whipped recalcitrant goblins on occasion, there was something almost kindly about him.

During his shifts Direfang did not work the pregnant goblins as hard or as long as the others. The old ones were given more breaks when the Dark Knight taskmasters were not watching. And on several occasions, he’d snatch up a pick and work side-by-side with those he was assigned to supervise.

He became the closest thing to a friend Mudwort had ever claimed, and her shifts in the mines did not feel so onerous when she worked under him. From time to time, she would tell Direfang what the stone was saying.

And always he would listen respectfully.

Mudwort blinked furiously.

Good-the daylight had returned, and she was once again in the clearing with the orderly trees.

“Dreaming, but not dreaming,” she muttered. Somehow she had sent her senses through the earth-as she had on many occasions before-looking into the past and going back to the mining camp where she’d first met Direfang. She’d been thinking about the hobgoblin, and likely had unwittingly cast a spell to look in on him.

Maybe she should look in on him at his ruined city. Maybe she should check if he’d started rebuilding again, or if he was busy preparing for war against the knights.

“No.” She grasped her precious spear tightly. “No and no. Done with Direfang.” If she never saw him again, she would not have to share the spear … or tell him about dead Thya.