Direfang could hardly breathe. Everything was so hot and horrible, the scent of ashes and molten rock and burning goblins filling his senses. He could smell pine burning too. Narrow trees grew in patches of dirt throughout the Khalkists, and he could see a stand to his right bursting into fire. Lower, pitch pines burst into flames. Farther to his right, where another volcano had erupted, a white-hot river of lava, wide and surging, rolled down the slope and swallowed more trees. Near it a chunk of stone gave way, then another as a massive rent was ripped in the mountain. With each new rent or gash in the rock, more lava poured out.
Anything in the lava flow’s path was doomed, he knew. There was no escaping from that terrible fate.
He realized he hadn’t seen a single goat or bird since the exodus from the ogre village. The animals knew, he thought, that the ground was going to erupt, that the Maws of Dragons were going to burst. Why hadn’t he noticed the signs and got the army out earlier? Direfang’s despair was profound and crippling, and if Grallik had not brushed by him, then Erguth right after, he might have stopped and given up.
“Hurry,” Horace wheezed as he drew even with Direfang, impressing the hobgoblin with his strength and determination. “If you die, who’s to keep the goblins from killing me?” Then, impossibly, the stocky priest managed another burst of speed and clawed his way up the twisting, narrow trail.
Direfang couldn’t reply, his mouth still so painfully dry. But the mountains answered for him, launching gouts of flame into the air, roaring their anger and sending plumes of ash up to join the gray and black clouds. He remembered the Dark Knights in Steel Town talking about wars and skirmishes and how the sounds were incredibly loud and chaotic and confusing. No battle could match the volcanoes, he knew, perhaps not even the Chaos War the knights were so fond of discussing.
A wind picked up as more lightning flickered in the ash spouts above the two closest volcanoes. The wind keened as it struck the hot ash, and the lava hissed and gave off steam. The wind was strong enough to stir the thick gray-black clouds and let the pale blue sky peek through. And the wind brought with it the slightest draft of fresh air, which Direfang and the others greedily sucked into their lungs.
“Hurry, Foreman Direfang!” the priest called over his shoulder, shaming the hobgoblin with his superior speed.
So hurry Direfang did, his chest and sides aching from the pace and the heat and the choking of the Khalkist inferno.
Ash fell like snow, soft and warm, making it even harder to catch a decent breath. Light as feathers though the ash was, it came so fast and thick that it felt heavy on him. Mudwort ran with her hand cupped in front of her mouth, and Direfang, noticing, copied her. Then he ripped a strip from his trousers and wrapped it around his nose and mouth.
Mudwort paused briefly when the trail vanished, then started picking her way across the rocky terrain ahead, wrapping her fingers tightly as she pulled herself up and up. Direfang saw places where the stone had been scraped, probably from goat hooves. So they were following goats. There were hoofprints in the ash-filled dirt pockets between rocks, and the hobgoblin wondered if Moon-eye was alive and wished he were there. The one-eyed goblin could track goats like no other goblin, and perhaps could point to safety.
There was a bunch of them close behind Mudwort and Brak. The wizard seemed to have little trouble keeping up, Direfang noted with grudging respect, and a number of goblins scrambled behind him. The priest was struggling to claw his way up. Direfang came up from behind the priest and gave him a boost as he picked his own way forward. He couldn’t see very far behind through all the ash and smoke, but he saw goblins crowding up to follow him, one hobgoblin carrying Saro-Saro.
From that mountain, Mudwort led them to another, slightly to the west, then one more. They traveled for more than a day before stopping, falling from exhaustion and sleeping for brief intervals against rocky slopes covered with fine sheets of ash. That far from the volcanoes, they still didn’t feel safe. Ash still fell like snow, though not so dense as before, and looking up, Direfang could see splotches of the sky through gaps in the ash-smoke clouds.
Finally he let himself drop, many others joining him.
He slept, though he did not sleep long. Not that sleeping wasn’t his desperate desire-there was no part of him that didn’t ache or was not bone weary. He could have slept hours and hours, he knew, but they were still not far enough away from the danger and the fire and the falling ash.
Inches thick along that slope, the ash was slippery, and it hid jagged shards of rock that had been hurled far by the angry volcanoes. The ashfall had made the path treacherous. More goblins slept on the slope behind him, single file and curled together. He tried to find familiar faces and clans, but the goblins were all the same color-gray as the ash and the clouds overhead; their bodies and faces were marred, like his, by burns from pieces of flaming rock that had brushed them. Again, he wondered about Moon-eye and others he had not seen for more than a day.
The demonic glow of the lava illuminated the drying streams of melted rock. Ugly and craggy, they looked like wrinkles on an old man’s face, wrinkles on the world.
“The Maws of Dragons breathe fire still,” Mudwort told him, coming up to him even as he stirred from sleep. She hadn’t slept long either, and she couldn’t stop yawning, her fingers shaking from fatigue. “This goblin army-what’s left of Direfang’s army-needs to march again now. Away from the stone dragons and to a place not far, but safe.”
Direfang wanted to ask her where she was leading them-clearly there was a purpose to her course-but still he couldn’t manage to get out more than a strangled croak. He’d swallowed too much dust and could barely breathe. His chest felt tight, as though an ogre were squeezing him. He should sleep, just a little more, but Mudwort was probably right-he had to trust in her wisdom-that where they were wasn’t a safe place to sleep. He roused Brak and Folami, Saro-Saro and the wizard.
Grallik looked like a walking corpse, his features gaunt and ash streaked, his hair plastered to the sides of his face from sweat and his entire body coated in grit. The shift he wore was tattered and soiled. He looked the part of a slave, reminding Direfang of some of the goblins who’d been pushed too hard in the mines when a thick vein was discovered, and who had worked double shifts and nearly died. Some had.
Direfang gestured to Grallik, who helped the priest up. Horace managed a whispered question: “Aneas and Kenosh?”
Grallik shook his head. “I’ve not seen them for too long a while.” He sagged against the slope and looked at Direfang wearily. “We cannot go on, not without more rest. None of your brothers should travel either. We all need more sleep.”
“And water,” Horace said.
Grallik narrowed his eyes and stared grimly at the priest. In Steel Town, when the wells had dried up, the priests cast spells to provide water. Horace could do that. “Yes, water,” Grallik whispered. He pointed to the empty jug that dangled from the rope belt around the priest’s trousers.
Horace shook his head. “Not here. I’d be overrun by thirsty goblins. Besides, I haven’t the energy. That magic requires some energy.” The priest heaved himself forward, following Brak and Folami, nodding to Direfang as he went by. “The red-skinned goblin is right, Foreman Direfang. It would not be good to stay here. I promise I will create water for you soon. But not here. It wouldn’t be safe here.”
They traveled another full day before stopping. They shuffled along slowly at times, stumbling often, and some of them disappeared over the edge of one trail or another, or were left behind in the dark. No one tried to rescue their fallen fellows, though the lost were mourned. Sadly, their spirits would return to intact bodies to be trapped forever in some rocky crevice filled with ash. But they were too fatigued, too frightened, to stop and do anything about the lost.