The Rebellion

25

Many goblins brandished Steel Town knives, and the hobgoblins with swords held them high while letting out ear-splitting shrieks. Mudwort peered over the edge of the rock spire and watched the surprised ogres react in confusion.

It was a beautiful sight. Mudwort wished she could have watched the battle in Steel Town from such a vantage point. The ogres barely had time to grab weapons-clubs and gardening tools and rocks from the buildings they were repairing-before the first wave of goblins struck. Mudwort cursed the dark sky. If the sun were out, she could see the glorious sight much better.

There were Brak and Folami, charging ahead of Direfang and Spikehollow and barreling into an ogre holding a hoe. Folami shot beneath the brute’s arms and rammed a knife into his thigh while Brak grabbed the hoe handle and pulled it free. The ogre roared in anger and flailed with its empty hands, finding Folami’s head and wrapping its big fingers tight around the goblin’s skull. The ogre picked Folami up, crushing his skull and throwing his corpse toward the approaching Direfang. The hobgoblin howled, put his head down, smashed into the ogre, and sent it to the ground.

“Folami dead.” Mudwort shook her head. He was a young, strong goblin, and she used to enjoy listening to his stories-not that she’d ever told him that, but she listened while in the slave pens. She watched as more goblins died, the ogres bashing their heads with clubs and rocks, then hurling the bodies into the still-surging army.

Mudwort looked around to spot others she knew, seeing Moon-eye near Direfang and instantly scowling. “Should not be there.” She tsked. “Should be with Graytoes.” If Moon-eye shared Folami’s fate, Graytoes would be devastated. To lose a baby and a mate could be too much for the goblin to bear. Mudwort did not want the responsibility of looking after a grieving Graytoes, nor should the task fall to Direfang.

“Moon-eye, come here!” Her words were not loud enough to carry down the rise and into the village. But she repeated them twice more, feeling a little better just for saying them. She’d made a token effort to save Graytoes’ mate.

The ogres were more formidable than the Dark Knights, she realized after only a few moments. First of all, the ogres were not as tired and broken as the knights had been. There’d been time for them to rest since the second earthquake, and they were larger and stronger than the knights in Steel Town. As she watched, one of the ogres lifted a hobgoblin over his head.

“Erguth?” Mudwort was on her feet, hand cupped over her wide eyes, staring. “No. Not Erguth. Someone else.” She didn’t know that hobgoblin’s name, but from his coloring, she knew him to be a friend of Direfang’s. And she saw Direfang racing toward the brutish ogre, Erguth close behind him. Direfang was coated with blood, and Mudwort hoped fervently it was ogre blood and not his own. He’d not yet wholly recovered from the wounds the knights and quakes had inflicted.

Mudwort turned her gaze to another part of the battle and saw Spikehollow lead a band of goblins toward the slave pens, quickly dispatching two guards and starting work at pulling apart the old wood slats. All the goblins had caught the blood fever; the desire to fight was infectious. Spikehollow gestured here and there to various goblins, and though she couldn’t hear him, she knew he was barking orders.

Direfang was also ordering goblins around, as was Saro-Saro, who had foolishly joined the battle. Old Hurbear stood on the rise just below her, watching, though after a moment more he started creeping down for a closer look. The goblins fought just as fiercely as they had in Steel Town, but they fought better, Mudwort realized. They followed Direfang’s and Saro-Saro’s directions with little hesitation.

The goblins were already a better-organized army, Mudwort recognized. They were not as disciplined as the Dark Knights, who had drilled each day in Steel Town, and their weapons were still wielded awkwardly, sometimes ineffectually. But nonetheless, the goblins acting in unison were … fearsome.

“Amazing,” Mudwort whispered. In her years before slavery, she’d seen goblins work together only for small, specific tasks, such as hunting parties. She looked back to Direfang. She could not locate him for several moments and worried that an ogre might have killed him. She finally spotted him by the building with the stone wall, still holding his left arm close to his side. Crelb was nearby, shouting at him.

The goblins had fought their way through half the ogre village by then and had killed at least twenty of the huge brutes. Ogre children were being herded into houses, and Brak motioned for some of his fellows to pursue them. Mudwort thought it unnecessary to kill the young. She quickly changed her mind when she thought of the ogres who had captured her long ago with even younger members of her clan.

“Kill the ogres,” she hissed. “Kill even the younglings.” She squeezed the rock spire in her excitement, eyes darting from one end of the village to the next, slapping her foot against the ground when she watched the goblin and hobgoblin slaves spill out of the broken pen and rush to join the fight. Most of the humans stayed huddled, though two skinny men ran away toward the far trail that led east out of the village. The goblins did not try to stop them. The pathetic humans weren’t the enemy there.

The spire beneath Mudwort’s fingers continued to tingle and pass its anxiety on to her. The ground continued to tremble, still faintly, and coupled with the heady scents and sounds of the battle, she found the moment supremely pleasurable. She sensed creatures still moving above and below the ground and heard the cries of birds that flew to the east. It was difficult to divide her attention between the earth and the battle in the ogre village, but she tried.

The fight did not last as long as the one in Steel Town, and Mudwort was vaguely disappointed about that. It all simply ended too soon. More goblins died there than in Steel Town, but things seemed to even out with the addition of the freed slaves from the ogre pens. She made herself more comfortable, sitting in a shallow depression of earth, and watched as Direfang directed goblins to gather up their dead brethren and burn them, using the slats from the slave pen as kindling.

Saro-Saro had put himself in charge of raiding the ogres’ storehouse, which was the building inside the stone wall. Wisely, he did not allow the goblins to feast, but instructed them to spread out the food and wait. Hurbear joined him, sharing in the authority and responsibility.

There was some chaos, and Mudwort found that more interesting to watch. Brak and other young goblins dashed from fallen ogre to fallen ogre, prying loose pouches and other things of value as keepsakes to mark their bravery in the fight. One goblin used a knife to cut wooden beads out of an ogre’s beard. Another cut off an ogre’s nose and paraded around with it, holding it in front of his own and laughing.

The goblin army filled the ogre village, flowing through the streets and into the buildings, poking through the rubble and searching through the gardens. Some ate things they discovered, but Saro-Saro was quick to slap them if they were within his reach. The old goblin couldn’t keep all of them from looting and eating, however, so he set his clan to passing out the food as the laborers had done in the mining camp.

Mudwort wondered if there might be something tasty for her, such as the three beasts roasting over the fire pits, which Hurbear had placed his clan in charge of. Her stomach trembled along with the ground. She considered leaving her perch on the ridge and getting in one of the food lines. The goblins below would defer to her and let her move to the front. She was very thirsty too, and a visit to that small lake-where many of the goblins were drinking-would sate her.

Still, Mudwort didn’t budge. She couldn’t say what held her at the top of the rise. She watched Graytoes carefully climb down, following the narrow trail that led to the center of the village. A few older goblins also had stayed back from the fight, either not wanting to risk themselves in the battle or preferring to watch it all unfold. They, too, moved down the trail behind Graytoes. Mudwort should follow all of them, she thought. She should get something to eat and certainly something to drink. She was terribly thirsty again.

What held her there?

“Something,” she said. “Something is not right.”

Once more she thought about slipping down into the village, not for food, but to find Moon-eye. If she followed Graytoes, she would find Moon-eye soon enough. The one-eyed goblin had an unnatural talent for scenting things, and Mudwort wanted him to come up there with her and smell the air, smell the air from the ridge top without the blood and dirt filling his senses. He might help her puzzle out what was making the earth anxious. He might be able to figure out what is was that followed them.

“Something follows.” Mudwort had a twitchy feeling. The earth was telling her that feet walked upon the trail to the north and that they were heading in the direction of the ogre village, following them. She knew the goblin army would be easy to track, but who or what would want to follow so many goblins?

She looked back down the trail, not able to see all of it because of rocky outcroppings and because it curved and disappeared behind a massive upthrust of granite. The gray sky didn’t help. She glanced up at the glowing volcano peak. The crater was brighter along the rim, perhaps looking so because everything around it was so dark. It was beautiful.

“A mountain is going to break,” Mudwort said. She scratched her head and sniffed, smelling sulfur, just as in Steel Town after the earthquakes. “Maybe that mountain is the one that will break, but maybe not. Maybe soon, though.”

She shrugged, rolling her shoulders and getting to her feet. And after staring at the lava stream for another long moment, she started to make her way down the trail. Whatever followed them was not something she wanted to encounter alone.

“Moon-eye needs to help find out what walks behind,” she said to herself as she headed down to the scene of the glorious goblin victory.