He shook his head after several moments. “South, yes, but not now. First, return to Steel Town to rescue Mudwort and the others. Water and food are plentiful in Steel Town. Clothes and foot coverings too. Things must be stolen. Better that goblins have those good things than men keep it all.”
Most stared in shocked disbelief at the hobgoblin. A few spat and shook their heads as if he were mad. It had taken so much of their willpower just to reach that point of safety. To return to Steel Town was absurdity, lunacy.
“Slaves once, slaves no more,” Folami snarled. “Not go back to the slave place ever, ever again, Direfang. No reason to go back there now, ever. Forget the ones left behind.”
“Too tired to go back!” Brak agreed. “Too dark. Too tired, and so forget all the others.”
The growl of the big cat sounded again, more distant. The hunting bird shrieked again.
“The Dark Knights have weapons!” Saro-Saro protested. “The knights’ numbers are less now, but the weapons are sharp. The weapons kill. Saro-Saro will not go back to that bad, bad place. None should ever go back.”
Direfang let the protests continue for a few minutes more, then he waved his arms and demanded their attention.
“This time goblins will have weapons too,” Direfang proclaimed. “Plenty of weapons to fight the Dark Knights. So it is back to Steel Town for needed friends and needed things. It would be wrong to let the Dark Knights have any slaves, wrong to leave goblins behind.” He puffed out his chest, feeling important with the words. “Without any slaves, the mines and the town will be crippled-neither will be rebuilt. So go to Steel Town before the knights gain reinforcements, before the knights can rest and tend their wounds, before the knights rebuild the slave pens. There is no better time to strike at the Dark Knights than now. Defeat the knights, then go south to freedom, where the air is better.”
The escaped slaves stared mutely, not one nodding in agreement.
16
This camp will not be abandoned. I will not allow it.” Grallik paced angrily before the five surviving members of his talon. The quake had taken a horrific toll on the humans too. A deep crevice had opened up at the edge of the infirmary, pulling half the wounded into the gash, along with other knights and laborers and their children. More knights were working desperately to extricate the bodies.
“I am the acting commander of Steel Town, and on my watch this hellhole will be rebuilt.” Grallik rubbed his chin contemplatively, avoiding eye contact. “For the glory of the Order, Steel Town must thrive once more. Do you understand?”
“Aye, Guardian,” the five answered in unison.
Marshal Montrill had been spared, Grallik learned, but one of the valuable Skull Knights had been killed and another seriously injured, leaving the camp with only two able healers, both no doubt depleted of their magical energies.
“Will you want to dispatch more messengers, Guardian N’sera?” The talon member asking the question was Kenosh, a middle-aged soldier, originally from Solace, who’d been with the Dark Knights for almost twenty years. Grallik had served with him more than a decade earlier and knew his toughness. Grallik had requested that Kenosh be assigned to his talon when he was promoted to guardian and relegated to that place. “Half the horses remain in camp, only a few are lame and-”
A howl cut through the air, and Grallik looked between his men to see one of the Ergothians setting the broken limb of a tall young boy. The youth thrashed miserably. The priest tried to hold him down while at the same time trying to conjure his healing magic. Behind the priest, a woman shuffled past, dragging a tarp filled with something heavy.
Grallik turned away. “Yes, Kenosh, more messengers will be sent, for certain. We’ve got no alternative, we urgently need certain materials and more men. But I will not dispatch them until tomorrow or the day after, and I will even send you if you’ve a desire for more pleasant scenery.” He waited for a reaction, and in the interval the boy howled again.
“I will remain,” Kenosh finally replied with a grim smile.
“Good. In the meantime, I want a full accounting of the destruction and of the number of men lost and wounded, as well as a detailed list of goods we will need from the outpost in Jelek. And I want a precise tally of the slaves we have remaining as well as those dead or missing.”
Kenosh raised an eyebrow at the last.
“To rebuild this town and reopen the mine, we must rely on the slaves. We need to know the number of those healthy enough to work so we can set up new shifts and reassign tasks. I also want a tally of those who are injured but who may not recover fully. Those slaves that would require too much effort to mend, they should be dispatched.” He paused. “Too, I need a list of our brothers who can speak the goblin tongue.”
“It will be done, Guardian.” Kenosh tried to maintain his proud military posture, but he couldn’t hide his defeated look.
“But before all of that, my knights, the two skull brothers who are still able and active …”
“Siggith of Jelek and Horace Branson, Guardian.”
“I must request their assistance now. Kenosh, get them for me.”
Grallik watched his talon spread out then closed his sore and weary eyes. The air was still heavy with the stench of burned goblin flesh. Dirt filled the air he breathed, and there was a trace of sulfur, though not as strong as in the first quake. He started coughing again, so hard he doubled over. He didn’t stop until he was spent, with his eyes watering so hard it looked as though he had been weeping.
There were powders in vials at the bottom of a crevice that he could have mixed and magicked to chase the horrid odors away. There were potions that would have refreshed him and allowed him to operate as if he’d just waken up from a long night’s slumber. But they were all lost, ruined. Though Grallik typically fancied himself a powerful wizard, he felt like a clueless novice. When the clean up was well under way, when the slave pens had been rebuilt, he would travel to Neraka and collect new spellbooks and casting elements. There were many wizards in Neraka, both among the Dark Knights and other organizations. They would help him replace his powders and potions. It would be costly, and at the moment he hadn’t a single steel to his name; all of his wealth had disappeared in the crevice. But he would call in favors and make pledges of coin, and he would regain some of his lost magic.
He wrapped his arms around his aching chest and glanced toward the volcanic peaks, seeing their red tops glowing through the haze. They looked, he mused, like sequins on a lady’s dress, set against the darkness. Smoke curled up from them-not unusual, Grallik knew. But there was more smoke than he’d seen before, swirling up into the sky to add to the dismal cloud above Steel Town. It was odd, foreboding.
“By the blessed memory of the Dark Queen’s heads,” Grallik murmured. A shiver raced down his spine as he glanced from one peak to the next and the next. “What more can happen?”
“Guardian Grallik!” The arrival of the two Skull Knights broke the musings of the wizard. “This is an affront, ordering us here when our brothers are …”
“Dying,” Grallik supplied the word for the taller man, the one who’d been at the goblin pens when the quake struck and the slaves escaped. The man’s face looked skeletal, his eyes and cheeks all the more sunken by dust and dirt.
“Dying, yes,” the gaunt man spit.
“Aye, Siggith of Jelek, your brothers are wounded and dying and need your immediate care. But all of us could die and Steel Town will be dust forever if we don’t tend the slaves.”
Siggith’s lips curled into a snarl.
“We have lost too many brothers already,” Grallik continued in a more conciliatory tone. “But we can no longer trust the slaves.”
“They could rise up again and …” Siggith did not finish the thought.