Jean Rabe - Goblin Nation

She heard the call only faintly because of the distance Isaam had put between himself and the rest of her men.

The warning grew louder as other voices joined. “The goblins are coming for us!”

Bera ran back toward her camp.

Isaam did not have the skills of a druid, which he judged considerable, and so the presence of a druid with the goblins bothered him. Was it a goblin? A hobgoblin that boasted nature magic? Or had the foul creatures found a human or an elf ally in the woods?

And if the latter was the case, was the druid so attuned to the Qualinesti Forest that alone he was a more formidable foe than all the goblins put together? Isaam remembered vividly the trees fighting the knights near the bluff. The trees were thicker in the knights’ camp and would pose a greater threat to the Dark Knights.

“To my last measure for Commander Kata,” he vowed silently.

Isaam’s enchantments were aimed at the druid, aimed at rending his nature magic useless.

“Let them all die for Commander Kata.”

Grallik N’sera was a nuisance compared to what a druid in the woods could do, so Isaam did not trouble himself over the traitorous Gray Robe.

Isaam struck at the greater threat, the druid, and therefore at the very forest itself. He would try to keep the druid neutralized and let Bera deal with the foul creatures that so vexed her. Let her find some joy in slaying them in great number.

To his last breath, he would help her.

The Qualinesti Forest was too vast for Isaam to take on in its entirety by himself, but his part of it … that perhaps he could manage. He could suck the life out of his little section.

If the trees in the area dried up and died, the druid would be hard pressed to animate them and could scarcely use the withered limbs to whip at the knights. If the grasses and moss that covered the forest floor became brittle, the druid couldn’t effectively use them to trip or entangle the Dark Knights.

“Death to these woods.”

Isaam embraced the darkest of magics, “death magic,” as some referred to it. He preferred to call it necromancy, liking the sound of the word on his tongue. It had taken a great deal of effort to pull the life from that section of the Qualinesti Forest with his spells, and at the same time the enchantment refreshed him. In enervating the plants, he took their life essence into himself and felt somehow stronger.

When he stood, he no longer felt stiff from kneeling so long. When he rolled his shoulders, he felt invigorated, as if years had melted off his thin frame. But that was only the physical effect, and it would not last long. Mentally, he’d exhausted himself. And his next piece of magic would truly tax him.

Isaam had well heard the warnings: first Lieutenant Doleman shouting that the goblins were coming then other voices and commotion. He knew Bera was readying the men and spreading them out. She would be furious and desperate, railing against the thought that her plan to take the fight to the goblins had been nipped in the bud.

“But you will not fail in the end, Commander,” Isaam whispered. He leaned against the dead oak, the first tree he’d killed with his spell. He called another enchantment forth from the recesses of his labyrinthine mind and let it flow to his fingers then into the dead tree. When the bark grew warm to the touch, he stepped to another tree and did the same then moved to another.

Isaam watched an ember spark to life on the first dead oak, initially looking like a firefly had landed there with its tiny light blinking to its fellows. The oak had become so dry that the magical ember quickly blossomed and others appeared around it. His firefly was indeed calling more to join it.

The sorcerer had detested the march through the Qualinesti Forest, but he’d paid attention along the way. The forest was vibrant, except where he’d just spread his withering touch. Fires were common in the dry, wooded sections of Neraka in the hot summers; the slightest spark set them off. People in Neraka wisely built homes and settlements away from the woods, not wanting to lose their worldly possessions, and perhaps their lives, to raging forest fires. No doubt the Qualinesti Forest boasted its share of fires too, though the place was not so brittle and dry as the woods in summer in his beloved Neraka.

“Burn,” Isaam coaxed. “Burn for Bera Kata.”

Small flames licked up the trunk and toward the upper branches. More flames traveled down to the forest floor, looking like liquid flowing toward all the dead leaves the tree had dropped.

“Let this forest be so much kindling for my magic.” Isaam smiled and wished Bera were there to witness his pleasure.

The fire crawled to the second tree Isaam had touched, smoke spiraling up like artfully curled ribbons as it rose. So many leaves had dropped from Isaam’s enchantment that there was plenty of detritus for the fire to feed on. Then his fire rushed to a third tree and a fourth-more and more.

Satisfied, he hurried to the north, where Bera’s men waited, and he glanced up at the forest canopy as he went. The fire had reached the first oak’s crown and had started to spread through the heights. It was moving faster than he had expected.

“Magnificent.”

The sorcerer heard the men in the distance calling “Fire! Fire!” Someone with a loud, shrill voice, one of Bera’s female lieutenants, shouted “Goblins!” The different shouts mingled.

The fire at the top of the oaks rode the wind south to the next tree and the next, dancing faster than someone on the ground could outrun it. The flames spread east too, and Isaam knew the goblins would find themselves under the fire soon-if they weren’t trapped already. His magic would spread panic, kill and diminish their numbers, and give the Dark Knights the edge.

He cast another spell, adding to his mental fatigue. The enchantment caused him to float above the ground, higher and higher until he was above the topmost canopy. Then he willed himself to stop. Floating there, he watched his dazzling fire jump. Sometimes it cleared a tree, sparing one on some capricious whim, only to catch the next one to the south and engulf it with a roar. The woods were so dry because he’d drained the life and the water. The trees easily accepted the fire.

The druid could do nothing to aid the goblins. No one could stop Isaam’s magic.

The wind blew stronger up in the treetops, no thick trunks to slow it down. Each gust set another section of the forest canopy on fire. In one place the fire jumped a quarter mile, he guessed, embers borne by the swift breeze, hurtling across a stream. The edges of the stream burned. Nothing Isaam’s magic touched was safe.

He heard shouts; they were faint, a fair distance away. The cries sounded pitiful. His fire had indeed found the goblins.

“Burn,” he hissed. “You like to burn the corpses of your dead. Let the forest you ran to be your funeral pyre.”

A fire whirlwind lit the sky, a column of flame Isaam suspected had come from Grallik-a feeble attempt to snuff out the main fire. But there was no main fire. Fire was everywhere.

“An ineffectual attempt. Your magic was always beneath mine, Grallik N’sera. Your rank as well.” The sneering Isaam floated a little higher and drew his robes tighter around him to cut the slight chill of the night breeze. The fire did not warm him.

The flames spreading to the west were erratic and a little unpredictable, encountering trees that hadn’t been kissed by Isaam’s draining spell. They put up a fight, but the fire was too strong to be denied. Isaam suspected the druid was in anguish and working diligently to figure out how to neutralize his spell … but Isaam’s magic was superior and spreading.