What the Dark Knights did not want to do for themselves, the goblins were forced to do. And stories said the Dark Knights paid the ogres well for strong, young goblins.
“South,” she said. “There is safety to the south.” It wasn’t a lie she spoke; Thya firmly believed they were going to a better place.
THE TYLOR
Dragon! Dragondragondragon!” called the goblin named Knobnose, a potbellied youngster whose yellow skin marked him as one of Saro-Saro’s clan. He stood on the ridge, pointed down to the huge beast at the base of the foothills, jumped, and waggled his fingers. “Dragondragondragon!” he repeated, spittle flying from his quivering lips.
“That’s not a dragon,” Spikehollow said. He shoved Knobnose back so the youngster wouldn’t tumble down the ridge; then he motioned the first wave of goblins forward. “But it might as well be a dragon for its size,” he added to himself. He drew a deep breath, swallowed hard, and brandished a long knife he’d taken days past from a dying Dark Knight. “Be fast! Be deadly!”
Spikehollow’s feet slapped against the stone as he whooped and urged more than one hundred of his fellows to follow. Their cries of “Be fast! Be deadly!” rose to a deafening din, and the gravel crunched under their heels as they barreled down the ridge toward the beast.
It made no move to flee.
The sky was copper from the late-afternoon sun, and it painted the goblins and the ground with broad, shimmering strokes, blending everything into earthen hues, including the creature they swarmed toward.
It stretched more than sixty feet from snout to stubby tail tip, with a mottled brown hide that made it look like a huge living hill. Its toes were as big around as tree trunks. And it had thick, blunt talons the color of eggshells that were split along the edges from digging in the hard ground. Its curved horns gleamed white like a bull’s, and its head looked vaguely like a dragon’s but was too wide and short. Its saucer-shaped eyes were set in the front of its skull, rather than perched toward the sides where a real dragon’s would be. When it moved, there was a flash of green along its flanks and at the base of its tail.
“A green dragon,” Grallik observed from the top of the ridge. A second wave of goblins descended, at least two hundred. The wizard leaped back to keep from getting swept up in the rush.
“That is not a green dragon,” Horace said after another group went hollering down the rise. The priest stood farther back from the edge, a safer perch. He shook his head and pulled his lower lip into his mouth. “It is a tylor, Grallik. Not a dragon.”
The wizard made a growling sound. “I know that, Horace. It is a spawn of a dragon and a hatori. Aye, a tylor. The Dark Knights had one hatori in Steel Town, which they forced to dig tunnels. The hatori escaped during the quake, slaying knights and goblins in its wake. In fact, Horace, I suspect …” The rest of the wizard’s words were drowned out by the thunder of more goblin and hobgoblin feet pounding against the trail and over the side, the whooping and yelling growing to a painful cacophony.
The beast watched the oncoming waves with mild interest. More than half of Direfang’s force was streaming toward it.
It laid its ears back and opened its maw, revealing a long black tongue and jagged teeth that looked like broken chunks of charred wood. It bellowed, the sound cutting through the chorus of goblin shouts, and it lumbered back from the base of the hill, allowing the horde more room to swarm around it.
Away from the shadow of the hill, more green scales showed. Interspersed with the brown patches, it made the creature look like a massive piece of rotting meat. It had that sort of foul stench, which wafted up the ridge to Grallik and Horace and made them gag.
“An abomination!” Grallik shouted, his voice sounding like a croaking whisper. He coughed, his shoulders bouncing from the strength of the spasm. He’d developed the cough in Steel Town, and it lingered even though they were miles from the place. “That’s what it is, priest, an utter abomination, a monster that should not exist!”
The priest shook his head again and mouthed something the wizard could not hear.
Below, the tylor’s neck stretched, and its jaws opened and snapped shut with a speed that startled the horde. Its teeth pierced one goblin, then another, and it threw its head back greedily as it swallowed them.
Suddenly dozens of goblins and hobgoblins shrieked in terror and fled from it, letting their knives and swords slip from their sweat-slick fingers.
“Feyrh!” they shouted. Flee!
On the rise, Direfang stared in disbelief.
“It is a rare creature of magic, Foreman. The tylor’s second skin is fear,” Horace said.
Direfang had to strain to hear the priest’s words. The hobgoblin leader had moved up between the two Dark Knights. He still held Graytoes, who continued to whimper. Anxious goblins crowded around him and the Dark Knights. Direfang had held many of the goblins back from the fight; they were too young or too old or weaponless. The hobgoblin leader had remained behind only because of Graytoes.
“Explain, skull man,” Direfang shouted. He scowled at the goblins continuing to flee and gestured futilely at those scrambling back up the ridge. They ignored him, continuing to climb.
Horace screamed to be heard above the din, the panic, and the thunderous growl of the tylor. “It is part dragon, and so it exudes magic! Fear! It terrifies your army with a thought. You were a fool to order it attacked, your rumbling bellies be damned! It will kill them all!”
“Then help, skull man,” Direfang shot back. He held Graytoes with one arm, his free hand shooting out to clamp itself around Horace’s neck. “Help now!”
Horace tried to wriggle free of the hobgoblin’s grip, but Direfang only squeezed tighter.
“Wizard, help too!” Direfang bellowed. “Burn that thing or die to it!” He made a gesture as though threatening to push the wizard off the ridge. “Use the fire magic.”
“Can’t breathe,” Horace managed to gasp. “Can’t …”
Direfang relaxed his grip on the priest only slightly. Horace gulped in as much air as he could, like a drowning man rising to the surface, and began gesturing with his fingers, pointing down the rise toward the goblins fleeing from the tylor. He tried to explain what he was doing, but only a croaking sound came out.
“He’s stopping them from running, the goblins,” Grallik supplied. “He’s giving them courage.”
“Fire, wizard. Now! Use the fire magic!”
Grallik brushed his hair out of his eyes and stared at the great beast below. Goblins lay dead around its front claws; three more were dying in its jaws. It tossed its head back and forth as it chewed, and even from that distance, Grallik could see the pleased gleam in its eyes.
“Not for much longer will you feast, abomination,” Grallik hissed. He thrust his hands forward, angled down, thumbs touching. His left hand looked wet, the scars thick on it and glistening from his sweat. A moment more and his pale skin glowed yellow, then white. Fire crackled along his fingers and arced down like lightning to strike the tylor’s head.
Flame danced around the beast’s jaws and settled on its tongue. It howled and reared back on stunted legs, its front legs flailing and its stubby tail twitching.
Grallik repeated the spell, striking the armored plates of its stomach, turning the fire white-hot and causing the beast’s natural armor to sizzle and pop.
The goblins who had not yet fled in fear redoubled their efforts, massing close to the creature and stabbing viciously with the knives and swords they’d taken from Steel Town, jumping back to avoid the fire and the claws and darting in again.