Grallik and Horace yelled too.
Direfang dropped the satchel he was carrying, raised his hands, and grabbed Mudwort’s legs to keep her from falling off. Then he broke into a reckless run, dodging rocks bouncing down the slope and gasping in the dirt-thick air. Goblins and hobgoblins raced behind them, their screams trailing off as they toppled over the side. He wanted to look behind him to see who had been lost, but the air was filled with a brown dust fog, and he couldn’t see more than a foot or two in front of his face. He heard a strangled “moo” and a shower of rocks, followed by another and another. He suspected the goblins were pushing the cows and other livestock over the edge because the animals were clogging the trail.
“Knew a mountain would break, Direfang. Should have said something earlier. Did not think it would be this mountain.”
It was difficult to hear Mudwort over the groaning mountain and the screams of the goblins and hobgoblins behind them.
“The earth did not say it would be this one. The earth gave no warning the ogre village was not safe. The earth is tricky.”
The hobgoblin ran faster still, his chest aching from the exertion, his lungs burning from the dust and the heated air. The hot air! In a few minutes time, the world had grown feverish around them. Direfang pulled Mudwort off his shoulders and set her on the ground, both of them running.
He heard the chink-chink of chains and realized the wizard and skull man were keeping pace close behind him, the latter huffing and wheezing like a dying old man.
“Your magic said the goblins would not kill us, Horace,” the wizard yelled, spitting out the words. “But your magic said nothing about the volcanoes. They will kill us all.”
Volcanoes! Direfang remembered the word the knights had often repeated one night as they studied a large map. The word in goblin-speak was the language’s longest: gosjall-giyerafajra, mountains of fiery war. He’d waited on the knights that evening, around the map, bringing them mead and water and honey-covered bread, and polishing the pieces of armor they’d nested along the wall. He’d taken a long time with each task because he had found their words and the map interesting. It had been some years ago, right before he’d been named a foreman in the mine and was taken away from the servile duties of waiting on the knights. But he remembered the maps and what the men had talked about. It had been fascinating.
Direfang recalled seeing nine mountains of fiery war on the map, most of them scattered amid the Khalkist chain, two or three of them quite near Steel Town. Ever since that night, he would often look to the nearest two, sometimes seeing their crowns glowing, sometimes seeing gray clouds hover above them. From time to time, ribbons of red flowed from their tops, and he later learned the Dark Knights called these red rivers lava. The goblins had a word for the red rivers too: eldura-bundok, mountain fire.
“This army must keep going south, Direfang. Faster, even if some are left behind. Better that some live than none. The fast ones will live.” Mudwort’s face was twisted with apprehension as she darted ahead of the hobgoblin. Once ahead on the trail, she started running faster than she ever had before, keeping to the middle and looking straight ahead.
Direfang, impressed by the small one’s speed, lengthened his stride but did not overtake her. He decided to let her be the leader for all to follow that day. After all, she had talked to the earth and knew its heart and would know the best path. He valued her wisdom and the counsel she gave.
He heard a pounding behind him, feet slapping against the trail, rocks bouncing down from higher up on the mountain. Chains jangled from the wizard and priest, and no doubt from the warrior knights farther back in the column. Direfang wished he would have removed the chains from the slaves, though he wasn’t sure how to do that. He’d seen no keys with the manacles and hadn’t bothered to search for any.
“Faster!” Mudwort called, risking a glance over her shoulder.
“Faster!” came cries behind Direfang.
Then the mountain heaved, and the hobgoblin lost his footing, falling forward on the trail and finding himself overrun by a half dozen goblins scrambling over him. He might have been trampled if two pairs of hands hadn’t hoisted him up and propelled him forward, the chains dangling from the wizard’s and priest’s wrists thumping his sides.
“The Maws of Dragons seek to slay us all, Foreman Direfang. While your people will not kill us, the volcanoes certainly will.” The priest’s face was wet with sweat beads. The trousers he wore also appeared soaked with perspiration.
The wizard was having an easier time dealing with the heat and the strain, but he looked worried and was coughing harshly. “I say not a god nor a man is responsible for this hell, Direfang. It is nature, worse than anything a god or a man could visit upon us. Horace is right; we will all die here. I’ve no magic that can save us, and he is spent.”
The mountain heaved again, and the trail rose and fell as if they were on the back of some great rearing animal. Direfang kept his balance, though he knew many in his army were not so fortunate. Their screams cut through the persistent rumbling and the sound of rocks pelting the slope. He wondered how many had died on the trail, their bodies bouncing against jagged rocks as they tumbled down. And he wondered how long before he took a misstep and joined them.
“Fought too hard to die here,” Direfang said through clenched teeth. He fixed his eyes on Mudwort’s back. She was ahead of the rest, even the group of goblins who’d passed him, nearly trampling him. Brak was among that group, and Crelb too. The two young goblins were good at running.
The trail turned down at a steep angle. From his vantage point, Direfang saw a great rent ahead, where it looked like the path had been ripped apart with a gaping hole in the center. There was nowhere to go but ahead, the hobgoblin knew, no turning around and going back, no heading down the side of the mountain-not without dying. They must jump the crevice. He couldn’t even warn the others above the din. His words would be lost-a useless waste of saliva.
He made a quick decision. He grabbed the wizard and the priest by their arms, half lifting them off their feet. Ahead, he saw Mudwort hurdle the crevice, thankful she landed on her feet and continued her mad run. Of the six who followed her, only five made the gap. Crelb jumped too early, legs and arms flailing in the air and failing to gain purchase. He opened his mouth and a scream emerged, though Direfang could not hear his death cry. The rumbling had grown in intensity and was almost hurtful to his ears. Crelb disappeared into the black hole, and a heartbeat later, Direfang, clutching the two spellcasting knights, who were running wildly in his grip, vaulted the gap and kept going.
“I made it!” Horace gasped proudly.
The wizard said something lost to the hobgoblin, but it sounded like gratitude to Direfang.
“Keep running,” the hobgoblin growled, letting go of the two so they could run on their own. “Run and live. Run, skull man and-”
A great whoosh swallowed the rest of the hobgoblin’s words and rose above the rumbling and screams and pelting rocks. The volcano they raced down had just expelled the tremendous breath it had been holding for decades and coughed up a gout of fire wider and longer than even the greatest red dragon could have breathed. With it came a stream of smoke and ash that shot miles into the air, pushing away the clouds and allowing, for the briefest of moments, a hint of blue sky.
Glowing, fiery rocks were spat out of what had once been the ogre village, some shooting so high up that the goblins lost sight of them. Others arced out in all directions from the crater, horribly burning goblins they hit on the way down. A cinder cloud billowed out as the mountain continued to writhe.
“It bleeds!” Erguth yelled. He’d fought his way up through the panicked horde until he was running directly behind Direfang and the spellcasters. “The mountain bleeds!”