Realms of infamy

he stumbled on to catch up with the column.

I followed, ensuring that the message had gotten through. It had. Silence was kept thereafter, and weapons were held at the ready.

We marched on for only three hours when Zeth abruptly slowed his pace, head turned to one side, and stopped. The scout behind him looked back at me questioningly. I came forward.

'There they are,' said Zeth, pointing ahead. 'We must begin our teaching.'

I looked ahead and noticed a faint light. We were about two miles from a small community that sat astride the cart path to our left. I detected no sign of any military activity, but that meant little. Enemy warriors could be concealed anywhere and had time to prepare a bloody welcome.

'We are safe,' said Zeth carelessly. He was smiling again and wasn't breathing as heavily as the night before. 'They don't know we're here.'

'How would you know?' I asked under my breath. I gave a hand signal for the troops to stay low and keep silent. Before I could do more, Zeth turned to me and grabbed my shoulder, pulling me close to him. I was too surprised to resist.

His breath was visible in the cool night air. 'Gather the villagers together. They will not resist I wish to begin teaching before the night has passed. Our people should gather around and learn wisdom, too.' He released me and sat on the ground with a thump, not moving from that spot.

I stared at him, then looked across the dark field. Gather the villagers up for Zeth to teach them? His grandfather had ordered me to obey the mad one as if he were one of the gods. Perhaps the gods would spare me for my obedience if any disaster fell, but I no longer believed it. I obeyed but felt I was as mad as Zeth to do it.

I left the scout with Zeth while I went back and collected the rest of the troops. Moments later, we moved on to the sleeping village.

The attack was over almost as soon as it had begun. Many of the halflings were in their beds when we set fire to their barns. As they rushed out, half-dressed and clutching blankets and buckets, they were shot by our archers. Many were clubbed down and herded together on the road as others of us torched the houses. Some fought back with farm implements-pitchforks, shovels, hammers. Those we killed. The dogs were more trouble than the villagers.

We forced the survivors-about three dozen males, females, and children-to strip and stand naked in the night wind. Warriors surrounded them and amused themselves by prodding bare skin with their spears, laughing and betting as to which of the little people would jump highest. Around us, orange flames roared through the halflings' homes and farms.

I sent a runner for Zeth, but he was already on his way to the burning village with the scout at his side. As I watched him approach, I wondered what purpose there was in this miserable raid besides this nonsense about 'teaching.' I had always fought armed humans before-guardsmen on caravans, or armored militia at fortified farmhouses on the borderlands. Assaulting such poorly armed and trained halflings was wasteful of our powers. I bit my lip with frustration and tasted blood.

Zeth put out his hands toward a burning cottage as he passed it, his smile clearly visible. He warmed himself thus, then slowed and picked his way with care toward the warriors surrounding the crouching prisoners. The huddled halflings' eyes were like those of caged rabbits. Zeth looked them over, and I believed then that he had to have sight of some kind. Was it magic, then, that let him see? I would not allow myself to think that the gods had anything to do with it. It must be Skralang's doing, though I could not imagine how or why.

Satisfied, Zeth walked to the top of a low mound, then turned to face the troops. There was silence across the area, except for the crackling of dying flames.

'In the beginning of all things,' said Zeth, his voice growing stronger, 'there was war between the gods and the rebellious earth, and the world was struck down and slain. Darkness covered its face; winds and sea lashed its corpse. Nothing grew on its naked rock or stirred beneath the cold moon. As the world lay dead, maggots were born from the blood shed by the gods in the battle, and the maggots burrowed into the flesh of the world and feasted upon it, celebrating the victory of the gods.

'Then came forces of light, and there arose a sun over the land. The light burned the eyes of the maggots and made them cry out. The old gods heard them and were moved to rage. One of the old gods put forth his hand and said, 'A debt is owed our children as well as to us, and now our children shall claim it.' He changed the maggots into goblins, and he gave them a commandment, that the goblins would always remember the days of darkness when the old gods were victors, when nothing grew on the world, when there was night eternal and deep. And the goblins would remember always to claim the debt owed them and their gods by the forces of light.'

Zeth swept a hand toward the flaming cottages beyond the gathering. 'Here we are tonight, the spawn of the maggots, and we are still asked to remember what our god asked of us, but we have forgotten it all.' His hand fell. 'At highsun tomorrow, a band of riders will come to this place, and they will see what we have done. They will taste the ash from the houses and feel the heat from the blackened fields. But will the riders fear us? Will the old debt have been repaid?'

The half-human paused expectantly, though none of us spoke. 'No. The riders will have seen burned villages before. They will have seen slain farmers. Why should they fear us-we, the firstborn, who are descended from the maggots who fed on the world?'

Several goblins stirred restlessly, their faces crossed with confusion. Even the prisoners had ceased whimpering to listen.

'Would you fear us?' asked the half-human, pointing at a goblin in the crowd. 'Or you? We have only burned a little town. Who is alive in the world who cannot do that? Little pixies could do that.' Zeth's face cracked into a shallow grin. 'Even humans could do that.' There was a pause, then he added, 'I should know.'

He let the silence grow. I shivered. There was a change in the atmosphere when he said the word humans, and we looked at him and remembered what he was.

'Even humans could do that,' he repeated. 'We've lived so long under the sunlight, away from the night and the truth, that we've forgotten who we really are. We've started to think-' Zeth leered as if he would laugh '-that we're human.'

None of the goblins moved. Their tight faces were like stone. His words were a mortal insult, the basest slander. Yet they rolled off Zeth's lips as if they were a shabby truth at which the knowing world snickered. Only the warriors' knowledge that Skralang was his grandfather kept Zeth from a speedy death.

Zeth's thin fingers reached into the air. 'Are we human now?' he called out. 'Can we do only things that humans do? Do we remember anything at all that our gods taught us? Has the sun burned it out of us, the memory of where we came from?' He then shouted, his face twisted with rage. 'Do you want those riders who come here tomorrow to laugh at our night's work? Do you want them to ride here and see this and say, 'Looks like humans' work, bandits maybe, just nasty old humans, good thing they weren't goblins.'?'

The half-human raised a hand to the black heavens. 'My father was a human! He cursed me with his taint! My eyes were not red like yours-they were blue! Blue, like a human's! Blue like the day sky! Where are my eyes now?'

He suddenly pointed at one goblin in the crowd, his white finger like a sword. 'You! Tell me! Where are my eyes now?'

The goblin's lips trembled as he mouthed a word silently.

Zeth's face came alive with fury. 'Tell me, dog, or may the gods burn you where you stand!'

'Your eyes are gone!' screamed the goblin. He fell to his knees. 'They are gone!'

'Yes!' Zeth shouted at once. 'They are gone! My eyes were human, and my grandfather gave them back! My grandfather gave back my eyes! These holes in my face are a thousand times better than the taint of my blue eyes! What my father was, his human taint, was cut out of me! I am more goblin now than are you, because my soul is free! My soul is clean, yet yours writhe with the taint of humanity! The proof is among you, there-the farmers you have taken prisoner! You've treated them as humans would treat prisoners! They beg you for mercy, mistaking you for humans! How far have we fallen for them to think we, the children of maggots in the flesh of the dead earth, are capable of mercy?'