Tenebroum

Chapter 26: A World On Fire

The goblins tore through the soft underbelly of the county of Greshen for the next few weeks on their relentless journey to Fallravea. Wherever they went, smoke followed in their wake. Krulm’venor made sure of that much. He was overflowing with power now, even if he bristled at the idea of serving anyone and made sure to point that out to the Lich in every conversation they had.

“But I am the stone burner,” the godling would say whenever the Lich ordered it to do something that it considered to be beneath it. “The world once trembled before me!”

“And it will again,” the Lich agreed, “but only if you do as you are told.”

Some villages offered token resistance, but most of the people had long since fled, and only the most foolish of heroes attempted to stop the endless tide.

None of them survived their own foolhardiness, and even after countless smaller battles and skirmishes, the goblins finally reached the capital with just under two thousand warriors baying for blood spread across ten war bands.

The last few months had seen their numbers reduced by almost a third, and they had come so far from the red hills that the swamp doubted very much that they could ever hope to find their way home without its help.

Very few of them would make the return trip, though. They were here for two things: to kill and to die. Not just so the Lich and Krulm’venor could feast on the carnage, either. The sheer amount of deaths involved in this impromptu war were terribly effective at poisoning the land so that the Lich could claim it as his own. Nothing pushed out the competing spirits faster than the unnatural darkness that suffering provided, and even though the darkness had lost much of the territory it had gained on and near the Oroza, almost all the lands between the red hills and the swamp belonged to it now.

Even normally troublesome places, like temples, and consecrated grounds had been burned and desecrated to the extent that they belonged to it now too.

Now, though, the goblins weren’t just devouring backwaters that no one had ever heard of. They nipped and probed around the borders of Fallravea - the capital itself, and were thirsting for the battle to come. The Lich had no intention of letting them sack the place, though, no matter how much they might want to. Goblins were useful for many things, but building cities and mining for gold were not among their talents. For that it would need men, specifically, its man, Kelvun Garvin, who was now second in line to the throne.

This hadn’t been the swamp’s original plan. It had intended to kill the boy’s older brothers with poison and disease, letting his father watch his entire family tree wither to nothing before it struck down the old fool. Bloodshed was quicker, though, and the timing was convenient. This army would only exist until the darkness found Theon, and then after that it didn’t care what happened to it, as long as its ending was as bloody as possible.

Fallravea was a city that had been growing for the better part of a century. At its core was a building of stone, more palace than fortress. Since it hadn’t suffered an attack of any kind in decades, many of its defensive features had slowly been supplanted with more decorative ones. Around that was the old city, which was protected by a wall of earth and brick. The bulk of the city lay beyond that ring, though, following the river until it slowly faded out into farmlands.

It was the last part that the goblins assaulted, killing and burning as they went. They had no scaling ladders, nor any real desire to be out in the open long enough to be shot by crossbowmen, so they stuck to the narrow alleys, and the streets farthest from the watch towers.

Near the water front, few victims remained, since almost everyone had evacuated for the crowded city center. But each day, the small army they had still sallied forth from the gate to try to hunt down the menace that was destroying their city. They met with very little success, because the goblins along with their violence evaporated until darkness fell once more.

In order to appear less impotent, Theon Garvin finally led a nighttime raid to try to push back against the threat. That was the moment that the darkness had been waiting for.

He wasn’t half the warrior that his father or older brother had been, but he went out with almost fifty knights anyway, thinking that if they stuck close to the walls they would be safe enough. They were wrong.

No sooner had the gates closed behind them, then goblins boiled out of the surrounding buildings and the sewer line. In the space of less than a minute, they’d gone from empty streets to almost a thousand gibbering warriors. It was a complete bloodbath, on both sides, but the darkness didn’t care.

Arrows fell from the walls like rain, killing or maiming a dozen of its servants every second, but that only served to heighten the moment while the doomed warriors fought to the last man.

The sheer amount of death made the scene glow to the eyes of the Lich. It had a terrible beauty to it as the souls evaporated, and the gutters overflowed with blood.

Even unhorsed a knight in armor was more than a match for twenty goblin warriors, but he was no match for a single goblin shaman, and human warriors fell almost as quickly as their goblin counterparts as the darkness threw away its pawns in a frenzy of killing and death.

Part way through the battle, reinforcements tried to come out of the postern gate in an attempt to save the young lord Garvin, but that only resulted in a small flood of frenzied goblin warriors making their way inside city walls before they could shut the gate again. Only four dozen made it inside, but it was enough to terrify the defenders, and for a time the archers turned to focus on their own problems.

That was the turning point.

After that, the shamans had nothing to fear and blazed a path through the last of the humans. By the time they were finished with the little lordling, no one would even be able to recognize his body.

It wasn’t until almost a week later that Kelvun landed on what remained of the docks to survey the burned out waterfront. He’d known what was happening even before news had reached him at the landing thanks to the relentless dreams of fire and blood that started the night Fallravea had been assaulted.

With the small number of soldiers he had, he doubted there was much he could do, but even so, the dreams demanded that he return home to turn the tide. Most mornings he awoke to the image of him standing victoriously atop a pile of the dead. Even that hadn’t been enough to sway him as he’d made preparations to depart. Not until one morning, his older brother Theon lay atop that pile.

That spurred Kelvun into action. All he had to do was go and rescue his father, and the Lordship would practically be his.

The journey north took several days. At each village and landing along the way, Kelvun stopped to gather more men. In the process, he had to promise an irresponsible amount of silver, but he was sure that his father was good for it.

So, over the last few days his two barges were joined by a small armada of fishing ships and other small boats full of men that weren’t quite eager to join the fight, but probably wouldn’t retreat in a panic as long as they were winning.

Kelvun had no doubt that he would win, thanks to the swamp’s protection, and as long as he was confident, no one had any reason to doubt that Kelvun “goblins bane” Garvin would once again be victorious.

“Today we fight not just for the Count, but for all our futures,” Kelvun said, trying to sound inspirational. “If we fail today, then the whole of the west bank of the Oroza will be lost to the good people who have cultivated them for who knows how long. We cannot let that happen!”

There were a few ragged cheers that went up at that, but by and large the men were not impressed. Most of them people he’d gathered lived on the east bank, and knew the goblins were unlikely to learn to build boats for some time. They were here for the money and the fame, in pursuit of what they saw as an easy victory.

As the sun began to set, Kelvun and his nearly 300 volunteers and mercenaries began their long walk through the ruins of the commercial district toward the gates of the old city.

The Lich watched the progress of his servant and his ragtag army with dark amusement. It was shabbier than either of the ones his brothers had stood at the head of, and yet somehow it was going to be victorious where those better men had failed.

The goblins watched them too, waiting for the right moment to pounce and rip them to pieces, but the darkness was unconcerned. It was focused instead on Krulm’venor. The godling knew the plan, but the Lich found it very unlikely that it would follow it, and everything hinged on that obedience. Without the shamans there to slaughter the armored humans, the rest of them would quickly retreat under the withering barrage of arrows.

The Lich watched warily as the fighting began in earnest in the main square, just far enough from the towers to avoid the worst of the arrows. At first, Kelvun’s army acquitted itself quite well. Then the fire started, flaring out from burned out market stalls in several places along the east side of their formation in an effort to break it.

It almost succeeded, too, the darkness noted as it turned its gaze away from the battle and towards its servant.

“I warned you, Krulm’venor,” the darkness intoned icily. “I warned you of what would happen if you disobeyed me.”

“What can you do?” the dwarven demigod blasted back in a shower of sparks. “I am Krulm’venor! I am free of your cage and more powerful than ever.”

“It’s true,” the swamp agreed, hiding its annoyance while it toyed with the fire god, distracting it from the battle at hand. “You haven’t been more powerful in a long time, thanks to me. You should respect that.”

“Respect? From the thing that put me in a cage? Nay!” the fire sputtered. “Once I’ve finished turning this city to ashes, I will take this army for my own and then march it here and burn you and all your corpses until they’re naught but dust, and there is nothing you can do to stop me!”

“Nothing?” the darkness asked, its words full of venom. “Be careful what you say to the one who holds your heart in their hand.”

“My heart! I will—” Krulm’venor screamed silently then, as the darkness had one of its minions close the door on the brass lantern that contained the true spirit of Krulm’venor. It had been left open for so long that the petty fire god had forgotten the significance of it, if it had ever understood it in the first place.

In a very real sense, the pathetic spark at the center of that bauble was the godling, and when the door was shut once more it cut him off from the whole world, instantly snuffing the thousand fires that he had started. The shamans that had most fully embraced him, likewise, fell over stunned or dead.

It was like Krulm’venor had been ripped away from the world, which, in a very real sense, he had been. He still existed and would perhaps be of some use to the swamp in the future, but only after he’d learned a bit more obedience.