Jean Rabe: The Rebellion

The ground shuddered and a rumbling began-the sound had no direction, seeming to come from nowhere and everywhere deep in the Neraka mine. It was a soft sound at first, almost comforting. But it quickly grew in intensity, becoming hurtful and blotting out the clang of pickaxes being dropped and miners calling to one another in panic. A great breath accompanied the quake, the earth exhaling in a thunderous whoosh that belched centuries-old dust the color of cinnamon from its depths.

Moon-eye’s throat grew painfully tight as he clung to a support timber. The lantern hanging from a spike directly overhead jiggled. Its light sent shadows careening frantically along the shaft walls. The young goblin peered through the dust, which was falling like a steady rain, and flinched when fist-sized chunks of the ceiling came loose and struck him. He fought the urge to run toward the surface, instead edging away from the timber and making his way deeper into the collapsing mine.

Fleeing goblins brushed by him as he went, some begging him to turn around and leave with them. A few carried guttering torches, which helped Moon-eye make out the jagged tunnel walls and avoid the largest pieces of stone littering the floor. Some struggled with bulging sacks-fearing their whip-wielding taskmasters more than the quake and therefore not willing to abandon the precious ore they’d mined. One dragged a diminutive goblin with a crushed skull.

“Feyrh!” Moon-eye heard a large goblin shout at him. Run. Escape. Flee. The single shouted word was almost lost amid the continuing tremor and the slapping of the swarm of goblin feet against the floor.

Twice he fell when the mine shook violently. Both times he got back up and pressed deeper, only to fall again when a burly hobgoblin running in the opposite direction pushed him out of the way. “Feyrh!” the hobgoblin spit at him. “Feyrh, dard!”

Flee, fool!

Moon-eye shook his head and got up slowly in relief as the ground grew still and the rumbling quieted.

“Feyrh!” the hobgoblin called a last time before lumbering out of view.

“Cannot leave,” Moon-eye said to himself. “Not without Graytoes.” Broken shards of rock cut into his bare feet as he continued on. Then another tremor struck, and more falling debris bombarded his back and shoulders and set his small body to bleeding and aching fiercely. At a side tunnel, he waited for another group of fleeing miners to pass; then he sniffed the dust-choked air.

Moon-eye’s sense of smell rivaled the finest hunting dog’s. He sorted through the tang of the goblins’ sweat and terror, the scent of the old bracing timbers, which were threatening to split at any moment, and the odor the very stone gave off. He sniffed the sweet traces of water. Rivulets always trickled down walls in parts of the mine from some hidden stream. He also picked up the disagreeable stench of waste. Permeating everything, blood was heavy in the air, and Moon-eye knew it was not just his, that many other miners had been injured.

How many injured?

How many dead?

“Graytoes!” He called twice more, then inhaled deeper and smelled the fetid odor of something rotting, a hint of sulfur, and the stink of a Dark Knight. One of the taskmasters was down that side passage, and he hoped the vile man didn’t make it out alive.

Moon-eye disregarded all those scents and continued probing. He drew as much of the fusty air into his lungs as he could, over and over, finally finding the familiar scent he’d been searching for.

“Graytoes.” His quest led him farther down the main tunnel. He started off at a careful lope just as the ground bucked even more strongly, once more sending him to his knees. The rumbling was like the sustained growl of some maddened beast, and it came from a specific direction.

Moon-eye looked over his shoulder and picked through the shadows to see a wall of earth and rocks rushing at him. Broken goblin limbs and a helmet that must have belonged to a Dark Knight roiled in the churning mix. The mass moved with a torrential speed, forcing the dank, dry air of the mine howling before it, bludgeoning the support timbers and shattering them and gathering the falling ceiling into itself before rushing on.

Moon-eye sped deeper down the main shaft, forcing himself to ignore the rocks biting at his feet and trying unsuccessfully to shut out the roaring cacophony so close behind him. He concentrated on the familiar scent; it came from yards distant. He turned at a side passage, then another, the second one angling upward and well away from the racing wall of earth. He leaped into the passage just as the ceiling gave way in the tunnel behind him.

“Graytoes!” Moon-eye thought he heard a reply to his call, though a part of him feared it was his imagination.

The ground shook again, and the odors all around intensified, settling in his mouth and threatening to overwhelm him. The dust filtering down was as thick as a curtain, and all Moon-eye could see were bands of black and gray. This tunnel was a more recent excavation, he realized, and the timbers were strong and fresh and-so far-holding.

“Graytoes!” Moon-eye crawled ahead, focusing on the remembered scent, constantly wiping his left eye with one hand while the fingers of his other hand felt along the wall to guide him. His right eye was a solid milky orb, oddly large and protruding from his leathery orange face. It was wholly worthless. The feature inspired his name, his father telling him that the eye reminded him of a full moon. Moon-eye had been born on a night when Krynn had only one moon, before the War of Souls. On the very night that Solinari, Lunitari, and Nuitari mysteriously returned, his family was captured by ogres and sold to the Dark Knights. When he was old enough to work, he had been sent to the mines, where he’d been toiling for years. He had no idea what had happened to his parents and siblings, lost like the single, large moon.

He passed a fissure in the stone, and through it came muted screams and the sound of rocks falling. He pressed his face into the crack and inhaled, registering and discarding one horrid odor after the next, before continuing down the passage.

It felt like an eternity, though he guessed it was only seconds, before the quaking took another pause and he stopped to catch his breath and steady his nerves. Moments later he reached a chamber filled with mounds of ore, buckets, picks, and crumpled bodies under chunks of stone. The nearest form was the only one breathing, a young female goblin whose legs were pinned by a fallen beam. A lantern that hung precariously from a crooked spike cast a soft glow on the scene.

“Graytoes.” His voice caught as he moved toward his mate. Her skin was the color of sunflower leaves, but it looked dead and ashen from the stone dust. Her once-delicate features were marred by deep welts. “Moon-eye’s Heart,” he whispered as he knelt by her, smoothing at her cheeks with his calloused fingers, his gaze darting from her face to her trapped legs.

The blood he smelled in that place was not hers, so perhaps she was not too badly hurt. He gently touched her slightly rounded stomach, covered only by a canvas rag of a shift; she carried their first child.

“Moon.” She sighed. Her eyes fluttered open, filled with pain and fear, and her thin, shaking fingers grabbed at him.

“Moon-eye’s Heart,” he said. “Must escape this place.”

One day earlier

Grallik rose just before dawn and stared across Steel Town. The buildings and the men blended in shades of gray and brown, as if someone painting the scene had used so much water that everything ran together to create a drab spectacle. The air was colored dully, too, from the dust swirling thickly. And it was heavy with sweat and waste and dirt. No amount of spitting could rid Grallik of the foul taste.