One of those men had caught her eye from the beginning. She studied him as he entered the fray, wielding a double-edged battle-axe that swept with the regularity and appearance of a pendulum. He was the largest in her unit, easily seven feet tall and heavily muscled, looking formidable in his suit of plate mail, with his chest evidencing some bluing-atypical for his low rank. She speculated that he had some ogre blood in his veins, but he’d not specified it in his records. He’d told her that he was twenty-six, but she put him at least five years younger; his face was boyish, unlined. In any event, she knew he came from a reasonably wealthy family; his bearing told her that, as did the battle-axe she’d allowed him to retain-a keepsake from his grandfather, he’d claimed. The Dark Knight wizard in her company whispered that it was enchanted.
That he hadn’t risen up through the stations was due to several documented incidents of insubordination. Lesser men would have been drummed out for half the number of offenses she’d found in his records before leaving on the march. No doubt his fighting skills, coupled with the losses the Order suffered from the recent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, preserved his job. He’d not shown her disrespect or balked at any of her commands … yet. And his courage and apparent bloodlust impressed her.
Zocci was the name he went by among the knights, though his full name was much longer-Zoccinder Angeda Redstone of… — a long name, so she would settle for Zoccinder. She’d left all the papers about Zoccinder in Neraka, along with her husband and nearly-grown daughter. Bera had seen less and less of her family in the past few years. The Dark Knights were more of a family to her; she’d been raised in the Order and would die with it.
“But not die this day,” she’d murmured to herself, watching the battle unfold at the outset. “Not to these grimy rats.”
She’d taken a position on the rise and ordered her men to fan out through the mountains. Her scout had discovered the goblins resting in that narrow valley, settling in as the sun was setting. Bera directed her most experienced knights to sweep around and come at the goblins from both ends of the valley, where a narrow pass cut through the hills, effectively trapping the enemy while the bulk of her force descended. Despite their heavy armor and weapons, the knights had moved at a stealthy pace, alerting the goblins only after the pass through the valley had been sealed.
Zoccinder had been among the first to rush into battle, and even from her lofty post, she’d heard his feet pounding across the earth, or perhaps she’d only imagined it. But she’d enjoyed hearing the first scream as his axe cut through a skinny hobgoblin.
She was pleased by the spectacle below. A grim tableau, some would describe it, but to her it was a glorious sight. There were six or seven times the number of goblins and hobgoblins compared to her knights, she guessed; it was impossible to count them. But her force didn’t need to outnumber them. The goblins were unskilled, most of them unarmored and without weapons; they were disorganized. Their screams of pain and disbelief roiled up the side of the mountain and tugged her down to join the lopsided battle.
“If Gare’s finished, Commander, those monsters-”
“Will pay with their lives, Eloy,” Bera finished.
They raced toward the fallen knight. Bera couldn’t see Gare’s chest rising and falling, but that didn’t mean he was dead; the plate mail could conceal his breathing. Gare was facedown, with two goblins standing on his back, one yanking aside his tabard. Two others were on the far side of him, grabbing at his weapons.
She snarled and swept wide with all of her strength, slicing through the waist of the first goblin, cutting him in two. The blade continued on its path, lodging in the chest of the other.
One of the other goblins had managed to free Gare’s sword. The goblin tried to wield it like a lance, clearly struggling with the unfamiliar weapon.
“Take care!” Bera warned Eloy.
He leaped over Gare and the two she’d slain.
The goblin drove the sword forward, but the weight of the blade caused him to lose his balance; the blade dipped down and speared the earth. Eloy cleaved the goblin’s shoulder, drew back, and ran it through just as Bera joined him and slew the other one.
“There’s traitors with them, somewhere,” Bera said. “Keep an eye out for the traitors.”
“I remember, from your briefing,” Eloy returned. “This is a mission of honor.”
Honor on many levels, she mouthed. Bera put her back to her comrade again and caught her breath. “Dark Knights, one of them an officer-and a wizard too, remember? Face scarred, I was told. An Ergothian priest, too, big as a barrel. Did I mention the priest was an Ergothian? A man of the water in a desert-dry mining camp?”
Eloy nodded. “Haven’t spotted them,” he said. “I can’t see any humans beyond us among this mob.” The knight was winded from the exertion. “Hiding somewhere in the rocks, maybe, they are.”
Eloy was young, half Bera’s age, and she was disappointed to note his weakness. She would force him and a handful of others to double their drills and exercise later. She left him behind as she rushed toward a trio of goblins harrying another of her knights.
“Where are those damnable traitors?” she said to herself. “I see only dying goblins. Too bad they don’t have better weapons. This is really too easy.” She drew a deep breath and thrust her blade through a small one’s chest. “Leave one hob!” she shouted to her troops, reminding them in a shrill voice.
In the end, they managed to leave alive three goblins, the hobgoblins having all fought to the end, refusing to surrender.
EYESON A FALLEN KNIGHT
Zoccinder guarded the three captured goblins, though his presence was not really needed. The trio was bound with heavy twine, lashed with their backs together and stripped of the semblance of clothes they’d worn; Bera could not stomach the creatures wearing what had obviously once belonged to humans.
The goblins hadn’t the strength even to snap the twine. One of them had a broken leg; the bone protruded from its thigh, and the blood congealing on it drew flies.
She paced in a circle around the three, occasionally pausing to grind the ball of her foot against the hard-packed ground. That the vile creatures vaguely had the forms of men grated on her. Legs, arms, toes, fingers, all in roughly the same proportions-though certainly not the same size-as a human’s. Their heads were rounder, the face of the female in the trio was heart shaped, and their wrists and elbows stuck out as if the skin had been stretched over their bones. Their eyes were small and dark, sinister, with bony ridges that shadowed them like a hood, and their teeth were pointed like a rat’s. She’d touched a goblin only once before, years past, one time, purely out of curiosity. She’d found its hide like leather, scaly in places and with little clumps of hair sprouting here and there that felt bristly like a stiff brush.
“These smell no better alive than dead,” she muttered.
“Stink to be certain,” Zoccinder answered. He settled himself on the ground opposite the biggest goblin and took off his helmet; a thick mane of red hair spilled out on his shoulders, strands sticking together with sweat. He tugged off his gloves, shook them out, and folded them, tucking them beneath his belt. Then he ran the backs of his hands across his face. “Stink more in this heat, the rats do. Shouldn’t be quite so hot this time of year.”
Bera stopped her pacing and met his gaze. He had large blue eyes that possessed an unusual hardness. “Yes, we need to find water when we’re done here,” she said.
“Larol and a scout are already looking,” he replied.