The Rebellion

10

Direfang watched as Moon-eye fawned over Graytoes. The young female sat propped up against a post, hands on her rounded stomach and eyes closed. She looked as if she slept, but the hobgoblin knew she just wanted a measure of privacy. Pretending to sleep despite all the noise and the crowding and the swarms of insects was her only way to get some measure of peace. Moon-eye waved gnats away from her face.

Her legs were swollen, and Direfang could tell that the left might be broken. If it were broken, it would be a clean break, he knew from experience. There were no bones poking out of her skin and no maggots worming their way inside. He was amazed that both legs hadn’t been thoroughly shattered and that she hadn’t died. But the ground beneath her chamber had been packed with soft dirt, and the dirt had absorbed some of the impact of the timber falling on her. Direfang had carefully carried her out of the mine and down the mountainside. He knew Moon-eye to be a hard worker, and he did not want Moon-eye to grieve too much over the death of a mate and risk punishment.

“Skull men will see to Graytoes later,” he told Moon-eye. “Mend Graytoes later. Graytoes will be well, maybe even a little later today.” He paused. “But maybe not until tomorrow. The skull men are busy mending the knights right now.”

Moon-eye snarled something unintelligible. He’d called to the guards several times, trying to get one of them to summon a Skull Knight to heal his mate. There were other goblins injured worse, but Moon-eye didn’t care about them.

“Moon-eye’s Heart hurts,” he said, stroking Graytoes’s arm.

“When the skull men are done with the knights, one will come here,” Direfang said.

“Promise?”

Direfang scowled. “No.” He patted the top of Graytoes’ head then worked his way through the mass of goblins so he could stand at the rail and watch the funeral pyre. He wondered why the Dark Knights chose to bury their dead and forever trap their spirits beneath the earth.

But Direfang had served the Dark Knights for many years and knew that was their way, though he never understood the reasons for it. It had something to do with their gods, the burying and corpse rotting. Perhaps their gods, with their cruel senses of humor, required the barbaric ritual. Direfang had never asked the Dark Knights about it. He was content that the knights, even though they did it unknowingly, properly observed the custom of goblinkind by burning dead slaves.

The goblin and hobgoblin clans had different ways of disposing of their dead, though all accepted the burning that took place in Steel Town. In fact, most of the clans Direfang was familiar with preferred the pyre. Then, after the ashes were cold, friends and relatives of the deceased traditionally would break and scatter any remaining bones, trying to leave nothing intact. Similar things would be done in Steel Town, though not by any ritual, and likely not with relatives involved. The hobgoblin knew the Dark Knights would order the slaves to rake the bones flat and cover them with earth, so the area would not look unsightly. That’s what they had done seven years past, when a wasting disease swept through one of the pens and killed more than one hundred goblins before the Skull Knights could stop the malady.

Direfang had been among those who raked the bones then, and he’d volunteered ever since that time to spread the ashes of the occasional lone slave who died because of a beating or mine accident or old age.

The clan Graytoes hailed from preferred to leave its bodies to rot in the woods, bestowing the flesh on carrion birds and the insects, and knowing that larger predators would rip up the corpses, also thereby separating the bones.

Moon-eye was taken from his clan at such a young age that he had no memories of the traditions they had practiced.

Saro-Saro’s clan had been known for eating its dead; that was the only clan Direfang was aware of with such a predilection, though he was certain there were others. And that clan, too, scattered the remains of what was not consumed.

Hobgoblin clans on the coasts usually gave the bodies to the seas, knowing fish and other creatures would feast on the dead. Those inland typically cleaved off a limb or the head as a remembrance for relatives, leaving the bodies for scavengers and returning to break and scatter and spread the bones. Larger clans ground the bones and used them in pottery or gardens, honoring the dead by letting them nurture the living.

Some of the oldest goblin clans used the rib bones of their dead warriors to fashion pieces of armor, believing that they gained strength by keeping the memory of their heroes and ancestors close. Mudwort once told Direfang that her clan used the leg bones of the dead to beat ceremonial drums and used skulls for bowls. Finger bones were sharpened into fishhooks, for her clan favored extensive use of tools and relied on lakes and rivers for their livelihood. Mudwort knew of many other curious practices concerning the dead but did not speak much about them. She did, from time to time, laugh when the Dark Knights buried one of their own.

No goblin body should be left to rot beneath the earth. And none should be left intact or unbroken, all the clans agreed. There should be nothing for the spirit to return to.

Enemies were another matter. When clan warred against clan, which was rare, or when they fought tribes of kobolds and gnolls, the goblins tried to dig deep and bury beneath the earth the enemies they killed so their spirits would be trapped. It was another way to dishonor their foes.

All the clans Direfang knew of were certain that goblin and hobgoblin spirits-once separated from their dead bodies-would return to Krynn to begin another life.

Everything returned. Nothing was wholly lost.

That explained why Direfang and the others had memories that came to them mysteriously or why they instinctively knew how to do certain things.

It also explained why the bodies had to be destroyed. A spirit would first try to return to its old form, and if that form was whole, regardless of its state of decay, the spirit would lodge there. It would be trapped for decades upon decades in the husk of its former self. And when time finally turned the bones to dust, the spirit would dissipate, lost and tortured eternally.

But if the spirit could not return to its old form because that form had been burned or eaten and the bones strewn about and broken, it would be born again into a new body. Direfang wondered if the spirit of one of the goblins who died in the mine and was burned this night would emerge as Graytoes and Moon-eye’s child. He hoped not. He hoped the spirits freed that night would be born to clans well beyond Steel Town and never see the inside of a mountain.

No one knew how long a spirit hovered before returning or how many times a spirit returned.

He wondered how old his own spirit was.

Direfang considered some of the goblins in the camp to be old souls: Mudwort, Saro-Saro, Bentclaw, Hurbear, and a few of those on the pyre. Perhaps those souls in long-ago times believed in gods such as Chislev and Takhisis and would have understood the Dark Knights’ silly burial practices. But the goblins believed those things no longer-they were more sagacious.

The goblins and hobgoblins in Steel Town, and in the tribes and clans throughout Neraka, did not revere any of Krynn’s gods. They recognized that the gods existed and that they capriciously meddled in mortals’ affairs. But goblinkind did not believe that paying homage to any god would send their spirits to some glorious afterlife. Neither did the goblins care to spend their afterlife with any of those gods. Such a fate would be more akin to damnation than salvation.

The gods never did anything good for goblinkind. They never made goblins and hobgoblins and their bugbear cousins strong enough to stand up to Dark Knights and ogres and minotaurs. They never kept goblinkind from being exploited and mistreated by practically all the world’s races.

They never kept them from being ripped from their families and made slaves, from being whipped and practically starved, from being forced to mine ore for cruel taskmasters such as the Dark Knights of Hell Town.

And they hadn’t prevented the earth from shaking and collapsing shafts down on top of goblin heads.

So because the gods had ignored goblinkind and deemed them worthless of their attention, goblinkind in turn ignored the gods and deemed them worse than useless.

Direfang felt mildly sorry for the Dark Knights, yoked as they were to their foolish gods and rituals, burying their dead so the spirits would be trapped in husks rotting beneath Steel Town’s ugly earth. He wondered how many more years he would have to spend in the camp before he died and was thrown into the fire. He watched the flames dance up the bodies and hoped he’d be lucky enough not to be trapped in the mine.

“Cold night, warm fire,” a goblin at his side observed. “Good burn.”

“Yes,” Direfang admitted. “It is a good burn. It will keep the spirits away.”

“Away from the mine,” the goblin said. “Away from this hell.”

Direfang continued to stare at the flames, coughing when the wind shifted and sent the acrid stench of burning flesh across the slave pens.

“Bad smell, the fire. Good that it sends the spirits away,” the goblin continued.

“This one will burn a long time,” Direfang said. “So many bodies, piled so high. So many dead.” The heat from the pyre made him thirstier and made him think about the place in the mine where water poured down the wall, where he drank his fill before carrying Graytoes out. Still, he stood there watching until the fire died down and the pile was reduced to charred, twisted remains. Most of the goblins had watched too, waiting for the ceremony to begin.

Hurbear presided. The goblin, like others of his kind, had a flat face, broad nose, and pointed ears. His mouth was overly wide, however, and filled with broken, flat teeth, which indicated his advanced years. His skin was a dusky yellow; his dull eyes had a film over them. Goblins from the same area tended to have similar coloration, and eight of Hurbear’s clansmen, their skin a brighter yellow because of their relative youth, crowded around him.

“The passing comes to all goblins,” Hurbear began.

“Let the telling begin!” Moon-eye yelled. “Listen to Hurbear.”

The elder goblin made the same speech for each death in the camp. “The shell destroyed, fire cleansed, the spirit reborn.” Hurbear made a fist and placed it over his heart.

“Spirit reborn,” his clansmen echoed. The largest thumped his belly with the flat of his hand then started up a drumlike cadence, which the other seven joined.

Hurbear raised his arms, fingers spread wide. “Spirits fly above Steel Town. Above pain. Above the great sad. Above clans left behind. Above all things.” He turned, nodding to each of the compass points. “The passing comes to all goblins. The passing came to …”

“Gray-morning.” Direfang claimed the right to speak first, and because of his size and his status as a foreman, none challenged him. “Gray-morning, called ‘old mother’ by some, hid strips of dried meat stolen from others in ore sacks on trips to the mine. Hungry, Gray-morning would eat before the work began. Hungry always, Gray-morning sucked on rocks and chewed on weeds, begged turnips from the taskmasters. Gray-morning brought smiles. The old mother, the old friend, will be missed.” It wasn’t a particularly captivating or special eulogy, but it defined the dead goblin and Direfang’s relationship to her. Direfang mimicked sticking a meat strip in his mouth and breaking some of it off. “Gray-morning is remembered.”

Other memories were not as well spoken but were nonetheless intended as a measure of respect.

“Big Snout smelled bad,” a young goblin offered. “Stunk in life, stinks now burning. Stinks worse in death. Big Snout is remembered.”

“Growler always scratched. Like a bear, Growler rubbed against the timbers in the mine. Growler is remembered.”

“Feshter was lazy. Lazy Feshter slept much, snored much. Lazy Feshter will not be forgotten.”

“Blue-lip bore two younglings in this pen.”

“Ren-Ren watched the horses. Ren-Ren made horse sounds.”

Direfang listened to each remembrance, trying to give each the reverence they deserved, yet finding it difficult to concentrate on only the sad occasion. He was worried about the goblins and hobgoblins who were not in the pens and not on the pyre, those unaccounted for because they were still in the mine.

They were likely dead, but it was not for certain. Some might be caught in passageways and chambers. He’d talked to one of the Dark Knight lieutenants earlier about going back into the shafts to search for bodies and survivors. The knights had missing men too and said that a mission would start at dawn. If goblin and hobgoblin bodies were not recovered quickly, Direfang feared the spirits would return to the dead husks and would be forever trapped in the decaying shells, forever tortured and lost.

“Saro-Saro’s brother, Sharp-teeth was. Only brother. Saro-Saro will not forget Sharp-teeth.”

“Bright Eyes sang well and told good stories.”

“Four Toes feared lightning. Four Toes hated storms and shivered like a youngling when the rains came.”

“Igrun was old and carried half-full sacks. Oldest in all of these pens, Igrun was.”

Direfang tried to count the goblins and hobgoblins in the pens. But they were moving around restlessly, and they were too numerous-all of them crammed inside rather than some of them working in the mine, as usual. He had neglected to count the number of bodies thrown on the pyre, and so worried that some of the dead would not be named in the ceremony.

Naming the dead and speaking a remembrance was a custom that dated back centuries for some clans. The stories recorded goblinkind’s history and were passed from one generation to the next, rarely embellished. The slaves’ stories, unlike those in free clans, were short and simple because their lives had been painful and monotonous. But the stories they’d heard before their capture were more elaborate and recalled great discoveries the dead had made, battles won, and strange beasts defeated. The telling was done to catch a spirit’s attention, to let it know it was missed and appreciated and, therefore, was welcome back for another life. Mostly it was done to honor the spirit because the gods would not do so … nor, in Steel Town, would the Dark Knights.

The sky had started to lighten by the time the ceremony was finished. Not all the goblins had stayed awake to the end, though not for lack of trying. Some of them had been awake for more than a day, and the injured drifted in and out of consciousness.

Mudwort had stayed awake through all of the ceremony, though she did not participate and only part of the time listened. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in the ritual; she did, and she had participated in others, though none on the scale of the one that day. Instead she was listening to the earth. When Direfang spotted her and found his way through the press of bodies, he saw that her fingers were thrust into the ground.

Mudwort sat against her favorite post, legs tucked close to her chest and arms at her sides, fingers digging deeper. Her lips were working, though Direfang couldn’t hear what she was saying-if indeed she was making any sound. The whispers of those still awake melded into a sonorous, indecipherable hum around them.

She gently rocked back and forth, her eyes closed and head tipped. She stopped moving her mouth for a moment, drawing her lips into a thin line and putting on a pensive expression, then she started mouthing words again.

Direfang watched her, perplexed and fascinated.

The ground seemed to ripple around her fingers, turning into wet clay and smoothing, then hardening, even as Mudwort’s expression hardened.

“Doing what?” Direfang said. The words croaked out. His mouth was so dry. He was so thirsty. “Doing what, Mudwort?”

She acted as if she hadn’t heard him, but her eyelids fluttered.

“Doing what?” Direfang spoke so loud that all the nearby goblins stopped their chatter and stared.

“Listening,” she said finally. She let out a great sigh, and her shoulders slumped. Then she pulled her fingers out of the ground. The holes instantly filled.