Soon she was flying past the goblins and the knights-who felt much heavier on the earth-and speeding over the north and west, going back and forth, trying to scout two directions at the same time. “Thya! Mudwort!” Maybe one of them could use her mental-magic to reach Orvago and Horace and warn them. Mudwort and Thya had more magic than she did. Maybe they could even do something to help the goblins against the Dark Knights. And maybe they could do something about the spreading fire.
The fire was spreading quickly, like an angry, ravenous beast-a thing bigger than the dragon that had ruined Direfang’s city.
“Mudwort, listen. Please, please, be listening to the stone.” Graytoes thought for a moment she had managed to find and touch the red-skinned goblin’s mind. Something felt familiar. “Mudwort?” Familiar, yet different. “Mudwort, help.” When there was no answer, she spiraled away, looking for Thya, calling out a warning to every living creature she sensed, hoping one or more of them were stonetellers and could hear her.
Graytoes continued her call until the sound of goblin feet intruded. Like muted thunder, the marching feet signaled her defeat; her mind had drifted back to the forest, to the goblins rushing toward her, to the fire spreading all around. She pulled her fingers out of the earth and hid behind a thick-trunked oak so Umay would not get trampled by the retreating army of goblins and hobgoblins. The baby continued to coo happily.
The cloud of smoke overhead was thicker and darker and was well beyond her ability to cope; it was like a roof that kept out the good air and forced her and Umay to breathe the burned, hot air that, like everything else, called out for water.
The fire traveled faster than the goblins possibly could, she realized. Birds shot like arrows through the smoke and to the south-all kinds and sizes, all squawking with terror.
“Time to join Orvago and hope for Jando-Jando,” Graytoes said to herself apprehensively. “Time for Umay to be safe.” She thought about the river. She could go down the bluff and stay at the muddy river’s edge. Water stopped fire so maybe her baby would be all right there. That’s just where she would go.
Graytoes waited until there was a gap in the panicked mob of goblins. She darted into the gap and ran as fast as she could along with the others. Little ground animals continued their mad dash, some weaving in and out around goblin legs, others hurtling parallel to the widening trail the goblins had created.
“Faster!” she heard someone in front of her holler. “Faster! Fire!”
“Back to the bluff!” another called. “Be fast.”
Then with no warning, the goblins she was running with suddenly stopped in their tracks, skidding into each other, some falling and getting trampled. She nearly got knocked down.
Graytoes felt her heart rise into her dry, choked throat. The fire had jumped over the goblin army and was ahead of them! She looked ahead and behind and to the east and the west.
The fire was everywhere, and they were all going to die.
FIRESTORM
Direfang shoved his way to the front, raising his new axe high and bringing it down on the head of a Dark Knight. The axe blade shimmered in the light thrown from the flames. It glowed faintly blue, and when it struck the knight’s helmet, it parted the steel like parchment. The blade buried itself in the knight’s skull.
At his side, Nkunda cheered.
The fire raged behind the goblins, and Direfang knew only that hundreds were caught on their side of the blaze, maybe at best a thousand. They were caught but maybe safe from burning. A part of him worried about the rest, hoping fervently they were racing back to the bluff where the trees were thin and they would be safe, where they could jump in the river if they needed to.
Though the goblins there seemed equal in numbers to the force of knights, the hobgoblin knew that their foes were better trained and more skilled and better armored. More goblins were dropping than knights. He and his fellows might die that night.
“But die free,” he said with a grunt.
Direfang’s vision was keen, but the haze from the fire made it difficult to see much farther than the first several ranks of knights in front of him. The wind blew toward him, which helped to clear some of the air, but it only caused him to worry more about the goblins behind the fire line. How fast was it spreading? Were all the goblins caught in the fire and being burned?
Grallik had made it through close to Direfang, the wizard bringing down repeated gouts of flame and conjuring walls of fire in an effort to neutralize the massive blaze. But nothing was working, Direfang realized, and he watched as the wizard turned his attention to fighting the knights instead of the fire.
“There is the traitor!”
Direfang heard a woman’s shrill voice cut above the fray.
“There is Grallik N’sera. He is mine! Do you hear? All of you? The traitor is mine to kill!”
The hobgoblin caught sight of her, the female Dark Knight, her face soot streaked and her hair slick against the sides of her head. She’d lost her helmet in the battle, and the shield she carried was dented and looked old. She looked worn, but she fought with a fury that surpassed the knights around her. She was the fearsome commander Grallik had told him about.
She was his.
Had she started the fire? Was she to blame for all the death and destruction?
Direfang struggled toward her, slashing at enemy soldiers who lunged at him, trying hard to keep the female knight in focus. The fire was too loud, whooshing at intervals and sending explosions of smoke in all directions. The very air was dying.
Weapons clanged against each other and against the Dark Knight shields. Out of the corner of his eye, Direfang spotted a hobgoblin as he stabbed a knight and grabbed up the man’s shield, charging into the next knight in line and knocking him down. A burly knight vaulted in front of Direfang, startling him.
“This one has Zoccinder’s axe, Commander! I think he’s the one that killed Zoccinder.”
“Gold to the man who brings me the murderer’s head!”
Direfang slashed with the axe, cutting into the stupid knight’s breastplate. The knight didn’t die immediately, and the hobgoblin had to yank hard to pull the axe free to strike again and again. Finally, the man fell, blood dribbling from his mouth, and Direfang walked over him to confront another one.
The woman would be his.
She’d brought the men to the forest, dogged the goblins from the Nerakan mountains to the shore of the Newsea, and followed them to Schallsea Island, where she had taken Horace.
Brought hell to his forest and his city!
She was a worse enemy than the bloodragers and the dragon, and the tylor the goblins had fought so long, long in the past. She was worse than the earthquakes and the volcanoes, for Direfang hadn’t considered any of those things evil. But the commander? From yards away he felt pure evil emanating from her.
“Mine!” Direfang shouted, finally close enough to get a good look at her face. “The woman is mine to kill!”
The woman’s eyes burned as darkly bright as the woods, and spittle flew from her lips as she decapitated Keth and ran her blade through the belly of another goblin Direfang didn’t recognize.
Her lieutenants had fought to form a small circle around her. All the better, Direfang thought, because he could kill more Dark Knights on his way to killing her. The axe he gripped was a fine weapon, filled with magic and with an edge so sharp that nothing could stand up to it for long. Fate had handed him that axe, and he would use it kill knights to his last breath.
Direfang spotted little shards of light that sparkled in the fire’s glow and melted through the breast plate of one knight after another, sending some knights tumbling to the forest floor, clutching their chests, where they were easier targets for the goblins. Grallik was continuing to cast his little spells, he realized. They were not as flashy as the columns of flame that Grallik specialized in, but they were more effective given the circumstances. The big fire couldn’t be stopped anyway.