The Rebellion

32

It wasn’t just the mountain the goblins left behind that was exploding, it was also the one directly across from it, and at least one other well to the north, that they could see.

“The three are one,” Mudwort was saying, trying to make Direfang and Brak understand. The two spellcasters were also standing close by, listening. “Those three, they are one volcano, not three. One volcano with three mouths. The earth says so.” She gestured to the south, where a narrow trail led between peaks. It was a trail used mainly by goats and didn’t look easy to navigate. A wider, gentler way led to the southwest, but Mudwort insisted that was not the way to go.

Direfang pointed at the southwest route. “The army would do better this way.”

She shook her head vehemently, spittle flying from her thin lips. “Maws of the Dragon, the skull man said. One volcano, though, not three, I say. Beneath the earth is a hidden pool of the hottest fire, and it spreads under the three maws, Direfang. It spreads to the mountains near Steel Town too. The quakes woke up the mountains, stirred the pool of fire, and that is why everything is breaking.”

Done with her explanation, she turned from them and dashed away along the narrow, difficult path, not bothering to look over her shoulder to see if they were following. Direfang had dropped the chains of the priest and the wizard. He looked at them, his expression weary.

“Keep up or die,” he growled. Then he sped ahead, tripping once, but picking himself up and keeping just behind Mudwort. The other surviving goblins, some just arriving out of breath, shouted to see him disappear-and followed.

Above and behind him, ash, rock, and pumice were spitting high into the air. The ash rose more than a dozen miles. Loud cracks and pops caused Direfang to run with his hands cupped to the sides of his face. The noise was as painful as any of the many burns and small injuries he had suffered on the trail.

To the northwest, the eruption column of one of the volcanoes was filled with twisted flashes of lightning. One more loud blast came from that cone, followed by an avalanche of rock as it began to collapse in on itself. In the process, the volcano disgorged a thicker, darker cloud of ash, and rubble crashed down the breaking slope, accompanied by belching, horrendous-smelling gas and melting rocks.

The air was impossibly hot to breathe, and with each step Direfang gained, he cursed himself for leading the goblin army in that direction. In his effort to avoid the Valley of Neraka and a great concentration of Dark Knight camps, he’d chosen instead to bring them straight into the belly of the Abyss.

Magma surged and the ground shuddered. Steam belched furiously, so scalding that it incinerated the goblins at the tail end of the army. Lava oozed up through tunnels and broke through the side of the mountain, creating a second eruption point through which gas and ash and melting rocks escaped. A searing, yellow-white river of molten debris spilled out, looking sluggish but picking up momentum and catching more goblins as it furiously wound its way down the mountain.

Had Direfang been at a high, safe distance, he thought he would have considered the vivid river of fire to be beautiful. But the horrors of the Abyss must be nothing near to it, he reflected as he raced on, coughing and sputtering and thrusting the pain all over him to the back of his mind.

Risking a glance over his shoulder, he saw the Dark Knight spellcasters, with a number of goblins swarming around and past them. They flowed like the lava, he thought. But he couldn’t see much else. The rest of his vast army was obscured. There were just ash clouds in layers of gray and black, white-hot stone shards flying like snow in a blizzard, and in the distance a shower of red ash. The hellish landscape nearly sucked all the hope from him, but he turned back to see Mudwort, who was remarkably climbing higher and somehow faster, with Brak and Bentclaw only a few feet behind.

His fault; he’d brought them to that place!

His fault for thinking there was greater safety in numbers and that staying together was some prudent measure!

He should have told them to scatter with their clans like bugs running from a disturbed nest. Direfang knew he would have gone south, but not so many of them would have been encouraged to follow, not so many of them would have died. He could still hear their screams amid the crackling and popping, belching ash and gas, and the constant, damnable rumbling. No matter how much he concentrated on the sounds of the volcanoes, he could not blot out the goblin screams.

There was nothing he could do to save the doomed; the exploding mountains were not monsters or men he could fight. And no weapon on all of Krynn could combat them-not even the magic of the priest and the wizard, who doggedly trailed him. The hobgoblin doubted he would save himself.

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.

Too many had fallen, their bodies never to be recovered, Direfang knew. How many had been suffocated by the ash? he wondered. How many had been burned to death? A good leader would have worked his way back along the column of goblins, boosting everyone’s morale and keeping a list of the names of the dead so they could be honored in a proper ceremony.

So Direfang did not consider himself to be a good leader. But he was their leader nonetheless, and he served them by shuffling along and not stopping. If he let exhaustion claim him, if he stopped, the ones behind him would stop also. And if they all stopped, they might not ever move again.

He guessed it was night by the time they came down a cliff side and stood at the base of one more mountain. The air was definitely better there, and only a little ash covered the ground. The clouds were thinner overhead, stars glimmering through wisps and giving some hope to the dazed army. The goblins spilled out into a narrow valley and miserably looked up at the next mountain Mudwort intended for them to climb.

Direfang slumped against a stone outcropping, took a few deep breaths, and collapsed. Around him, other goblins fell. Even Mudwort surrendered to her tortured muscles and dropped down next to an already-snoring Spikehollow. Within minutes, not one of the surviving goblins and hobgoblins were awake.