“Dead, the knight is,” Mudwort said. “Dead, all the horse knights are. It’s a good dead.” She stood in front of the hobgoblin, brushing at his face. “Hurt, Direfang is. Head sour, eh? But not hurt too bad.” She proceeded to describe the action around them: goblins swarming Dark Knights, more goblins snatching up skins and jars and hurrying to the well. Three hobgoblins running with squealing sheep under their arms.
“It is a good madness,” Mudwort told Direfang. “More Dark Knight blood soaks the ground than goblin blood. Perhaps the earth will not be so angry now. So much blood, the earth cannot drink it all up. Perhaps the earth will stop shaking.”
Direfang held his hand to his aching head then pushed himself to his knees. The world circled around him, and when it finally stopped, he slowly raised himself to his feet and shook out his shoulders then reached down and grabbed the bloody hilt of the long sword and pulled hard until the blade came free.
Things swam into focus. It was as Mudwort described: death and blood everywhere. His head pounded fiercely.
Despite all the pain he felt, the hobgoblin was pleased. They’d managed to rout the Dark Knights with fewer fatalities than might be expected. There were still more knights in the camp, probably gathered at the infirmary.
But they were done for the moment, weren’t they?
They’d won their way to blessed, sweet water and to food. Goblins and hobgoblins were leading away goats and sheep and carrying flapping chickens by the feet. One tugged on the reins of a big black horse. Goblins were pulling cloaks and tabards from dead knights, trousers and shirts from dead laborers and their families. Direfang saw Brak stripping the clothes from a small boy, an innocent boy-maybe that should bother him, he who had never killed anyone before that day.
But he didn’t feel anything toward the dead human child-only grief for the dead slaves.
He struggled toward the benches, where there were still water containers, pain lancing down his back. Mudwort scampered at his side, mumbling to herself and tugging on his trousers to get him to pause at the body of another dead knight. She retrieved a dagger and tugged free a bloodied tabard, and they moved on.
“Thirsty?” she asked him as she picked up a clay jug. “Cracked.” She dropped the jug and picked up another, then pointed to a large stoppered skin. Direfang took it and grabbed another and shuffled toward the well.
Close by, there were only a few more knights fighting, but goblins overran them, killed them quickly, and began looting their corpses. Fires burned here and there from where the combatants had knocked lanterns over on benches and posts.
“Must burn the dead,” Mudwort said, noting Direfang’s interest in the fires.
“But not the Dark Knights,” he returned. He dropped his sword, stretched out on his belly, and dangled his arms into the well, bringing up handful after handful of water and drinking deeply. He splashed water on his face and neck and tossed handfuls on his back. Other goblins ringed the well and were doing the same. Mudwort waited for her turn.
When Direfang had his fill, which took some time, he dipped the skins into the water and held them there until they filled almost to bursting. He stoppered and slung them both over one shoulder, got up, and retrieved his long sword.
“Yes, the dead must burn,” he told Mudwort. “Time to see to that.”
“Not many dead, though,” she said. “Not compared to the Dark Knights.”
“No, not too many to burn,” he agreed.
Direfang and another hobgoblin set about gathering the goblin bodies and piling them around the benches where the waterskins had been arranged. He ordered Spikehollow and Folami to scour the grounds for other dead slaves, then worked to coax a fire from a lantern burning low. When the bodies started to burn, he headed toward where the slave pens had been. His head still throbbed terribly, and the pain pulsed down his back each time he put weight on his right foot. The thrumming noise in his head and the victory shouts and yelping of the goblins were nearly overwhelming.
“From the death of the Dark Knights, there comes freedom!” A wiry goblin named Crelb was shouting. He stood on a bench, cupping his hands around his mouth for all to hear his words. “Freedom from death! Freedom for goblins!”
Direfang passed by, raising his long sword in salute.
“Freedom, because of Direfang!” Crelb yelled louder. “Freedom from death! Freedom from Dark Knights!”
Some goblins around Crelb cheered, some called the hobgoblin’s name over and over until it sounded like a chant. Others at the edge of the crowd barked questions: What would happen next? Where should they go? What was freedom?
Direfang held his right forearm to his head, then dropped his sword arm to his side, the blade thudding against the hard earth. “Yes, what is, what was freedom?” he muttered. “It was years and years ago, and it tasted very good.”
“What Direfang say?” Mudwort hadn’t heard him clearly.
“Time to free the rest of the slaves,” Direfang replied. “The ones with still-muddled minds.” He thought about having another drink of water. The dirt- and sulfur-filled air had dried out his mouth very quickly. But more than anything, he wanted to get out of Steel Town, and so he walked toward the huge milling crowd of a few hundred glassy-eyed goblins.
“Minds all muddled,” Mudwort said, still at his side. “Badly stuck.”
Direfang nudged some of them east and started in that direction himself, expecting them to follow. Then he called for those members of his army who could hear him and waved his sword arm in the air, gesturing east. His other arm was practically useless. His army slowly started to move. But still, the glassy-eyed slaves did not budge, pushing back against the wave of goblins urging them to leave Steel Town.
“This is home,” one close to Direfang said dully. “Cannot leave home. Steel Town is safe home. Safe here.”
20
This place is dead to us.” Marshal Montrill said glumly, lying flat on his back, wadded cloaks propping his head up so he could see the men who circled his makeshift bed. “What the quake didn’t destroy, the goblins did.”
The air was gray with ash and dust, laced with the sounds of men coughing and moaning and, in the distance, someone hammering. A knight barked orders to his fellows, but the words were drowned out by the crash of something metallic falling.
The men tending the wounded in what passed for the infirmary looked little better than their suffering patients. There wasn’t an inch of bandage or clothing that was not bloody and filthy, not a patch of skin that shone clean.
“Aye, Commander,” Grallik acknowledged. “It is all finished.” The wizard’s gray robe was smeared with blood and ashes and tattered at the hem. A dirty stubble marred his face, though no beard grew on the left side where his old fire scars were thickest.
Grallik himself had given Montrill the painful report of the goblin rebellion, describing the events vividly and leaving nothing out. Some goblins, he told Montrill, still remained in the camp, at the old slave pens, held by the priests’ enchantments. It looked as though the goblins who had revolted were trying to force the remaining slaves to leave, but the divine enchantments were strong and the menials were still rooted in place. Grallik did not think it wise to send any more knights to attack the goblins. It would be a suicide mission. He hoped the goblins would all leave, soon and quickly. Besides, few knights besides those guarding the infirmary were healthy enough to fight. That was what he told Montrill, bluntly.
“I hold myself to blame, Marshal Montrill.” In truth Grallik did blame himself because he’d posted only a few sentries at the pens after the second quake. He certainly hadn’t expected the escaped slaves to return, and he couldn’t easily recast any of his wards or glyphs. “We were not prepared.”