He screamed then, his knightly mien dissolving as the pain consumed him, as the pain had consumed Mudwort when they broke her fingers.
She wasn’t done with him, letting the ground open up beneath him so he could drop down. His chest passed below the surface then his head. The mud on the surface flowed over where he’d been and hardened at her bidding. The earth pressed in once more, crunching his breastplate and arm plates and breaking the bones beneath. He died too quickly for her. Mudwort had never considered herself a cruel sort, but she hated Dark Knights above all else.
“Five hundred and forty.”
The words pulled her mind back into her body. She blinked and beheld Donnel, sweat running down his horrified face.
“I said, there are five hundred and forty knights, under the command of Bera Kata.”
She hadn’t expected any of the Dark Knights to break and had fully intended to suck that one down and be on her way.
“On the beach?”
He shook his head, sweat beads flying. “They were on the beach when we left them, but they were coming inland. They would find us later, or we would find them. There’s a sorcerer with them. He can find most things.”
“Isaam.” Mudwort recalled the name one of them had mentioned in connection with dark magic.
“That’s him. He would use his magic to find us so we could join the main force.”
“Hunting goblins, all these knights?”
He nodded.
“Five hundred and forty.”
He gave another nod. “Maybe more coming from an outpost. Commander Kata asked for them, but I don’t know if the orders came through.”
“Why?” Mudwort couldn’t understand why the Dark Knights would expend so much effort to track down the escaped Steel Town slaves. There was no more Steel Town. It was buried under tons of rock and hardened lava. And if they needed slaves for some other endeavor, why didn’t they just buy more from the ogres and minotaurs in the mountains? Why spend so much time and effort, and certainly steel, to track down Direfang and the others. Wouldn’t it be more prudent to buy fresh slaves and save time and steel?
“Why?” she posed louder. “Why hunt goblins? These goblins?”
He shrugged, his lower lip trembling fearfully. All bluster, he’d been, she thought. Maybe he realized the Blood Oath he’d sworn was a waste of time and saliva after all.
“Submit or die.”
The redness vanished from his face and he looked oddly pale, his face all shiny.
“To make an example, I think.” He sucked in his lip and squared his shoulders. “I think the Order needed to make an example of all of you. Can’t let slaves escape. Others might try it. And Guardian N’sera … traitors must be punished.”
She nodded. That would make a certain amount of sense. She silently regarded him. Her silence made him even more frightened. She was listening to the birds sing, spotting a pretty blue one with an orange belly and a white tuft on its neck.
“Can’t let slaves escape. Can’t let them be uncaptured and unpunished. Sets a bad precedent.” He spoke barely above a whisper. “For our honor. For the honor of the Order.”
“Honor?” She looked to where his companions had been. “The spirits will live in rotting bodies. No honor in that. S’dards, Dark Knights are. Spirits forever caught in rotting flesh.”
After the earthquakes in Steel Town, Mudwort had watched the knights bury their dead fellows. The graves were not far from the slave pens. In their armor and with weapons on their chests, they were stretched out in the ground, wrapped in a fine blanket, and covered with dirt. The knights capped their ceremony with words of praise and with a promise of a life beyond their world. Mudwort and the other goblins knew the living knights were committing their fallen brethren to a hellish eternity.
The goblins believed spirits returned to the bodies they’d inhabited, but if those bodies were burned, scattered, or otherwise destroyed, the spirits were forced to find a new life in a goblin being born. The knights’ spirits would return to dead husks, forever trapped in rotting flesh, going mad and nowhere.
“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?” He paused. More softly, he said, “Not that I can blame you, how we treated you here. How we treated all of your kind in Steel Town and elsewhere.”
“Five hundred? And forty?” Mudwort was trying to wrap her mind around the number. She knew it was a lot, but she didn’t wholly understand numbers. She knew there were many, many goblins. One thousand, two … more than five hundred and forty knights. But how many more? Did Direfang need to know that?
“Five hundred and forty knights. Commander Kata wanted more. Maybe she’ll get them.”
“From an outpost?”
“Yes.”
“All looking for goblins.” She pursed her lips. “Direfang must know.”
She drummed her fingers against the ground, thinking. How far was she from the bluff? One day? More? Grallik is partly to blame for the Dark Knights following, she thought. Damn half-elf wizard.
“They’ll find me … or my body,” Donnel said fearfully. “You have to realize that. Isaam will find me, and they’ll come here. And then they’ll find you. They’ll kill all of you.”
Mudwort’s expression grew darker and he shuddered.
“Never find the goblins, the hated Dark Knights,” she said after a moment. “Because this Isaam will not find-”
“No. Please. I told you what you wanted to know. By all the dark gods, I …” His voice trailed away as he sank beneath the surface, the ground filling in over him. Mudwort smoothed the dirt with her magic.
The Dark Knight commander-Mudwort could not remember the name of the officer-and the magic-user called Isaam wouldn’t find the knights because they would all be dead and buried-more than buried. She continued to work her magic, sending the ones already buried under deeper and sending the broken one caught on top below and the one coated in rock with him.
“Down,” she ordered the ground. Within minutes they were hidden deep in the earth’s bosom, where their spirits would return and be trapped and driven mad forever and ever.
She pulled her arm from the earth and brushed it off. Her fingers pulled on a clump of clay that caught on her hair, closing and opening the fingers of her good hand. She held her injured hand close to her chest as she tried to stand, her first two efforts failing miserably. Finally she regained her footing, putting all her weight on her good leg, and hobbling toward the base of a tree where the knights had left their packs.
She gingerly sat and pulled the first one to her, fumbling with the clasp and sticking her good hand inside. She pulled out a dark linen shirt, like she’d seen some of the knights wear under their armor. That she set aside. She’d need something new because one of the knights had torn her tunic. Further exploring produced a cake of scented soap, which she discarded; a metal comb, which she had no use for; strips of cloth, one of which she wrapped around her mangled hand; and a small tin of hard candies, which she quickly devoured. The tin she filled with fresh earth, wanting the tin as a keepsake to remember the spot where she killed six Dark Knights all by herself.
There was more food in the other pack, too much for her to eat all at once, and nothing smelling as sweet as the candies. Mudwort wished she would have saved a few pieces of the candy for later. She rarely thought of later where food was concerned. There was a jar of salve, which she rubbed on her sore leg, finding it did nothing to ease the ache. But it smelled pleasant, and she held her nose to the jar. “Flowers. Smells like little purple flowers,” she muttered, enjoying the sound of her own voice.
There was a small, sharp knife and a sheath, which she kept, and a silver chain and a locket, which had a tiny painting of a pretty girl inside. Perhaps the knight’s sister or wife. Mudwort dug the painting out with her fingernail and discarded it, putting the chain and empty locket around her neck.