Date: 2015-09-15 15:28:54+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy
Description: Part Four of the Jharro Grove Saga and the 9th book in the acclaimed Bowl of Souls Series, an action-filled fantasy series set in a world of magic, mystery, and monsters!He was born a king. Half troll and half man, he crawled from the womb of a god and found himself leader of a deformed but powerful race. As he struggles to lead his people Mellinda slithers into their midst. She wields the Rings of Stardeon and she has her own plans for his people. A prophet has been taken. A demon army joins the enemies of the grove. Will Justan's might and Tarah Woodblade's powers be enough to help Jhonate's
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

The Jharro Grove Saga: Part Four

The Troll King

A Bowl of Souls Novel

By Trevor H. Cooley

Trevor H. Cooley

Copyright 2015 by Trevor H. Cooley

Cover art © Renu Sharma  www.thedarkrayne.com

Map by: Michael Patty on www.trevorhcooley.com

The Bowl of Souls Series:

The Moonrat Saga

Book One: EYE of the MOONRAT

Book 1.5:  HILT’S PRIDE

Book Two: MESSENGER of the DARK PROPHET

Book Three: HUNT of the BANDHAM

Book Four: THE WAR of STARDEON

Book Five: MOTHER of the MOONRAT

The Jharro Grove Saga

Book One:  TARAH WOODBLADE

Book Two: PROTECTOR of the GROVE

Book Three: THE OGRE APPRENTICE

Book Four: THE TROLL KING

Book Five: Upcoming 2016

Noose Jumpers:

Book One: Noose Jumpers (Winter 2015)

Dedication

To my son Hazen. Hyper and crazy and awesome, he’s like a smarter, but admittedly, less coordinated Cletus.

He is turning eleven at the time I write this and has just begun his Bowl of Souls journey. He has listened to the first three audiobooks and each time he tells me about a part that excited him, my heart leaps.

This is why writing is worth it. Love you, Duderman.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty One

Chapter Twenty Two

Chapter Twenty Three

Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter Twenty Five

Chapter Twenty Six

Epilogue

Prologue

“Awaken.”

Elise Muldroomon sat up in her bed. Her heart jumped in her chest and she threw open the curtains. Soft morning light flooded in, illuminating the interior of her large canopied bed. A sense of relief came over her. It was all right. She was just in her room.

A smile hit her face as she slipped out of the bed, her feet touching the soft white fur rug at the side of her bed. It was a gift from her brother and made from the skin of an exotic type of bear found only in Khalpany. Andre had given it to her when he became king. She would have to remember to thank him again.

She opened the glass doors to the balcony that opened up off of her room and walked outside. She looked over the city of Dremald that spread out far below her and smiled, breathing in deeply. The smell that wafted up from the congested city below wasn’t exactly pleasant, but it was familiar; the smell of home. Contented, she walked back in and sat in front of the mirror to brush her hair.

This was her morning routine, the same one she had followed since she was a little child. Once her hair had reached the desired straightness and luster, she would eat breakfast and call in her maids to dress her. She would need to look her best when she stood with Andre next to her father as he addressed the nobles that afternoon.

“Awaken.”

Something within her mind flashed and Elise froze mid brush-stroke. She looked into the mirror with horror. The face that looked back at her was that of a stranger. Her hair was not full and lustrous, but limp and dull. Her skin was no longer pink with youth, but so pale as to be nearly translucent.

“No-no-no.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. That face was an illusion, an idle dream brought about by still-tired eyes.

When she opened her eyes, her face was familiar again. All was back as it should be. She laughed at herself and continued to brush her hair until she was satisfied. Then she stood and approached the desk by her door where the servants would have left her breakfast. There it was, still steaming. Bacon and buttery strawberry jam pastries. She lifted up one of the pastries and lifted it to her mouth to take a bite.

“I said awaken, Queen Elise Muldroomon.”

Something within her mind flashed again. The luxurious pastry in her hand had been replaced by a hard chunk of bread. The platter before her was no longer polished silver, but plain hammered tin and held just a lump of cheese and two cold sausages.

She dropped the unwanted bread onto the platter with shock and turned to take in the rest of her room. It was still the bedroom of her youth, but so much had changed. Everything was dimmer, like the life had been drained from the room. Her fine tapestries were gone, as were most of her wardrobes.

Elise heard music floating in from outside and stepped back out on the balcony. The familiar smell of Dremald was still there, but her view was partially obscured by thick iron bars that encased the balcony. It was as if she were standing in a bird cage.

She looked down into the square below and saw that a large number of people had gathered for some reason. A band was playing. What was the big event?

Some of the people below saw her and pointed up. Shouts rang out. Angry shouts.

With a cry, she fled from the balcony and ran to her front door. She reached for the handle, but there was no handle. All of the locks that that she had installed were gone. In fact, it wasn’t her original door at all. It had been replaced by a thick, ugly door that locked from the outside. There was a barred opening where a guard could peer in and check on her.

Elise swallowed, trembling as her illusions began to fall apart. She was no longer a child princess. Her father and brother were dead. She was queen of Dremaldria now, and her husband . . .

“Ewzad!” she cried. “Ewzad, I need you! Come, please! I’m frightened.”

“Ewzad Vriil is dead,” said the Dark Voice.

“No!” She ran to the rear of her room, looking for Ewzad’s secret entrance. She would go down to his laboratory and visit him there. But the entrance was gone, sealed shut by mortar and heavy metal plates. She pounded on the metal. “Ewzad!”

“His death is your fault. You disobeyed me and he grew reckless.”

“No,” said Elise, shaking her head. “Get out of my mind!”

She leapt back into her bed and shut the curtains after her, then pulled her blankets up over her head. They were the magic blankets that her father had given her when she was a child. He had promised her that the runes sewn into them could keep out evil. Surely if she stayed under them, this terrible dream would end and she would awaken again.

All would be made right. She would run to her father and hug him and he would tell her that all was okay. She willed that better life to be true and slowly she began to believe it again.

“There is no hiding anymore.”

The voice shattered her defenses. Elise clenched her eyes closed and prayed. She prayed to every god she could think of. “Please. Please I beg you. Make my blankets work again. Protect me from the voice.”

“All your prayers come to me now, Elise,” the Dark Voice reminded her. “Do you so easily forget?”

“P-please,” Elise whimpered. Of course she had forgotten. She had to forget. Reality was misery. Reality was pain.

“Enough! The time for insanity is over.”

She felt the Dark Voice’s power flex in her mind. He tore away the safe world she had created bit by bit. More true memories flooded her mind. She had been queen and married Ewzad. He had gone to conquer the Mage School and, despite the Dark Prophet’s commands, Elise had gone after him. But why had she done that? Why?

The Dark Voice freed another memory in her mind, this one the most terrible of all. She had gone after Ewzad because . . . she had been pregnant. The Dark Prophet had demanded one of her unborn twins and she hadn’t wanted to give it away.

Sobbing, she paced her hands on her belly. It was flat. Her babies were gone. Her womb was empty, a shriveled husk.

She screamed in grief. “Why? Why do I have to know this? Why must you cause me this pain?”

“Get dressed, Elise. I have a task for you,” said the Dark Voice.

“It was Talon.” Her lip quivered. “You sent her. You and the moonrat witch. You had that vile creature steal my babies!”

“That was the result of your betrayal. They are gone.”

“D-did she . . .” Elise couldn’t finish her thought. The idea that Talon had eaten her children was paralyzing.

“The beast did not harm the infants,” the Dark Voice said.

“Then give them back!” she growled.

“You do not make demands of me!”

A sudden spasm of pain lanced through her. Elise arched her back and would have screamed if her jaw had not been clenched shut. A series of awful cramps contorted her body, twisting her muscles until it felt as though her bones would snap.

“You are mine, Elise,” the Dark Voice reminded. “You bound your soul to me when you sacrificed your brother.”

That was another memory she had suppressed. She had first heard the voice when she had stabbed Ewzad in his throne room. But the process of binding her soul had not been complete until, with Ewzad at her side encouraging her, she had used another of the Dark Prophet’s ceremonial daggers to pierce Andre’s heart. There was no escape for her now.

Yes! I’m yours. I know it! The cramps ceased and Elise gasped as she collapsed, whimpering with exhaustion. “Please, Master. I’ll do anything you want. Just let me see my babies again.”

“You are not in a position to negotiate,” the voice reminded her. “However, your desires and mine are not out of line with each other. If you are obedient, you may yet have the opportunity to raise your heirs.”

“Yes, Master,” she whispered. A small flame of hope lit inside of her. Would he actually let her see her babies again?

“A visitor comes. Be ready.”

“Yes, Master.” With a groan,
Elise slid back out of her bed and stood on shaky legs.

Her master’s punishment had taken a lot out of her. She felt like she had been running for miles. Her nightgown was drenched with sweat and clung to her body. If only she had time for a bath. Resting her sore muscles in hot water would have been wonderful, but the Dark Prophet’s voice had been urgent. She stumbled to her desk instead.

Elise pulled off her sodden nightgown and reached for a container of perfumed powder. She dusted herself liberally, letting the powder absorb the moisture on her skin, and flung open the door to her wardrobe. It was packed full of frilly dresses and gowns. Despite her imprisonment, the nobles still let her dress like a queen.

The thought filled Elise with anger. She had been supplanted. She, the rightful queen was imprisoned while the nobles squabbled over succession. How dare they? Now that she had her mind back, she would not stand for it! She would demand her kingdom back.

“He approaches.”

She swallowed, realizing that she was still standing there naked. She grabbed one of the dresses, a blue one with silk skirts and began lacing it on. Who would this visitor be? Who normally visited her?

Despite the return of her sanity, Elise’s memories of the recent past were jumbled. So much of that time had been spent in a dream-like trance. Surely the servants came and cleaned. She seemed to remember the odd noble showing up, but one face was most common. Demetrius.

Elise grimaced in embarrassment. Captain Demetrius had visited her often, bringing a tray of tea. He had sat and spoken to her as she had gibbered on about her father and brother and other silly princess nonsense. He had never corrected her, simply smiling politely as if she weren’t crazy. She felt the urge to strangle him just for the indignity of it.

There was a rattling of keys at the door and Elise turned in time to see it crack open. A man wearing a brown traveler’s cloak slid into the room. He winked at her.

“Hello, queen.”

The man’s voice was high and unfamiliarly accented. His hair was a shock of red and his face was splattered with freckles. Under his cloak, his clothes were plain, though he wore a sword in an ornate silver scabbard.

Leaving the door slightly ajar, he dropped a large sack onto the ground and stepped over to the desk where her breakfast platter sat.

“May I?” he asked.

The man lifted a cold sausage from the platter and bit off half of it. Then, while he chewed, he bent and shoved the rest of it down into the doorjamb. He nudged the door closed, but it didn’t latch. He turned to face her.

“Sorry, but once it shuts I got no way to open it from the inside.” He jerked his thumb back towards the door. “You know, dead guard.”

She frowned. “Who are you?”

“Oh! Sorry about that. That was rude, wasn’t it, not introducing myself?” He smiled and held out his hand. “You can call me Nod.”

Elise didn’t take his hand. “And you’re not worried about leaving a dead man outside my door? What if someone comes by?”

“Oh, I covered it up a bit,” he assured her. “Also, no one’s gonna come.”

“And why not?”

“Because of the coronation, of course,” he said. “Everybody’s busy with the preparations.”

Elise blinked back at him. “Coronation? What do you mean?”

He reached up and scratched his head. “Wow, you have been out of it, haven’t you? Can’t you hear them all outside, yammering?”

She glanced back towards the balcony, where the tinny sound of music and the low roar of voices were still flooding into the room. “Yes, but I wasn’t aware . . . So the nobles have decided. Who is replacing me?”

“Well, the great Lord Commander Demetrius is rising to the top of the ranks, milady,” he said.

“What? But how.” Her cheeks reddened with outrage. How dare that man? “He isn’t even of noble blood!”

Nod grinned. “I can see that this will take some explaining. Tell you what. I’ll fill you in while you get dressed.”

“I am dressed,” she said.

“True, but you ain’t wearing that. Here.” He lifted the bag that he had dropped on the floor and tossed it to her. “Put them on.”

Elise caught the bag and wrinkled her nose as she looked inside. “These are servant’s clothes.”

“Yeah, well how else am I gonna get you out of here? What’ll folks think if they see me trying to take the imprisoned bloody ex-queen out of the palace?”

“I’m leaving?” she asked, eyes wide. The idea hadn’t occurred to her.

“We got places to go, don’t we? Lots to do,” he replied. “I’d disguise you better if we had the time. Once we’re far gone, we’ll stop and cut your hair. Probly should dye it too, I wager.”

“Cut my hair?” Elise said in shock. Where exactly was this man planning to take her? “And why should I go anywhere with you?”

“You ain’t burning to leave?” Nod said in disbelief. He shook his head. “Sorry. It’s me and my bad manners again. Of course you’d be wanting to see my credentials.”

The red-haired man lifted his left hand and made a fist. Blackness swirled across the back of his hand, revealing a dark rune. Elise licked her lips. This man had been named at the Dark Bowl.

The man grinned. “I see you recognize who sent me. Now get changed.”

Elise pulled the clothes from the bag. They were wrinkled and stained. He must have pulled them from a laundry bin. “Turn around then.”

He sneered at her. “Sorry, I’m not the sort of man turns around when a perfectly good-looking woman’s getting naked.”

“I insist,” she said with a glower. “Otherwise you can leave without me.”

“I counter your insistence with insistence of my own,” he replied with a short bow. “You don’t have a choice if you want to see your babies again. Don’t worry. Our mutual master ain’t gonna want me touching you. My eyes however . . .” He snickered again. “See what they want to see.”

She turned away from him with a scowl and began unlacing her dress as quickly as she could. “So tell me, Nod. Just how did Demetrius talk the nobles into crowning him king?”

“He did that by becoming a noble himself,” the man replied.

She could feel his eyes on her bare back as she lifted the servant’s dress. “Impossible. There hasn’t been a new noble house created in centuries.”

“Yeah, that would be a problem. Guess that explains why he went and got himself adopted.”

“Adopted? By who?” Elise knew the noble houses better than anyone and she couldn’t imagine any of them allowing an uncouth commoner soldier like Demetrius into their ranks, no matter how much his prestige had risen during the war.

“Why the long lost heir of house Vriil,” said Nod.

Elise spun to face him. She wasn’t completely finished putting the new dress on, but that didn’t seem to matter at the moment. “You mean Willum?”

Ewzad had told her about the boy child of his sister that had disappeared during his parents’ execution. Ewzad had looked for him for years before assuming him dead.

“That’s right. Willum Vriil, resurfaced during the war. Evidently he had joined the academy and become quite the hero,” Nod replied. “Once his secret got out, the nobles demanded that he take up his inheritance and become one of them, you know. Instead he sent a letter announcing that he had adopted old Demetrius and appointed him as steward of the Vriil lands.”

“He adopted Demetrius via letter? And the nobles stood for that?” she said in amazement.

“Of course the houses squabbled over it for a few weeks,” he said. “But Demetrius is really popular among the common folk. He did liberate them from you and your dead husband after all.”

Elise quivered with rage as she put on the sturdy boots that were in the bag. It wasn’t anger at Demetrius or even the other nobles. It was anger at herself. If only she hadn’t wasted the months after the war descending into madness.

“Kind of funny when you think about it,” he added. “All that trouble they went through to get rid of one King Vriil, just to crown another.”

“I could have done something about this,” she said. “I know how to pull strings. I could have salvaged the situation. Perhaps even held onto my throne.”

“Yeah? Well you didn’t,” Nod said. He gripped the edges of the door and pried it slowly open. “Now let’s go. The master’s got plans.”

Chapter One

“Perhaps I do have need of someone like you,” the Troll King said. He stood from his crumbling throne, leaving a thin slimy residue behind.

Mellinda, who had been leaning over him, was forced to take a step back to keep from being knocked over. The king’s muscular seven-foot frame towered over her and as he peered down at her with his mismatched eyes, she felt an electric thrill. To think that her work over a thousand years ago had led to this person.

The Troll King was a living dichotomy. Like all of the trollkin his body was part troll and part something else, but his deformations were quite distinct. The right side of his body was handsome and human, while his left side was frightening and trollish. His left eye glowed a dull red, the left side of his mouth was overly wide and filled with sharp teeth, and the fingers of his left hand were long and tipped with wicked black claws. Somewhere, he had found an ancient garment that hadn’t completely rotted away. It was made out of what had once been rich green silk and was draped over one shoulder and belted at his waist.

His voice was a raspy tenor only partially slurred by the deformation of his mouth. “Come with me, Snake Woman. I would take you to the Mother’s womb.”

Mellinda held back a retort. It was the third time he had referred to her as a snake. If the fool had any idea who she really was, he wouldn’t dare. He and his people should all be bowing and scraping to her.

Nevertheless, she forced a smile and gave him a bow of her own. “Of course, my king.” Mellinda meekly stood aside as the king walked towards the rear of his chamber.

“He’s right, you know. You are a snake,” said another, unwelcome voice from within her mind. “At least he knows it before letting you in. I wish I would have known.”

Her reply to this second voice was mental, You should know by now that your insults mean nothing to me, Arcon.

“I bet it’s the rings that help him see it,” Arcon observed. “You give away your true nature with every movement.”

The comment stung but Mellinda did not let her irritation show. It had been weeks since she had turned the power of the rings inward and she still didn’t quite have full control over her new body’s eccentricities. The rings had turned her limbs snakelike. Keeping them under control required a constant amount of concentration and Arcon did his best to undermine her efforts whenever possible.

You seek to distract me, but your voice is as a mere buzzing of a fly. Easily ignored, she replied.

“In that case you won’t mind if I rattle off a list of other animals I could compare you to,” Arcon said with amusement. “Let’s see.
Vulture, slug, muskrat, moonrat, mole, salamander, dog, wolf, goat . . .”

Mellinda gritted her teeth. This was another of Arcon’s techniques to annoy her. When regular insults didn’t work, he fell back on chanting inane lists of words. Ridiculous. He should have learned by now that his prattle had no effect.

“You c-coming?” asked Murtha, the king’s part dwarf assistant. Her greenish lips were pulled back in a distrustful grimace, revealing a mouth filled with rows of sharp teeth.

Mellinda realized that she was still standing by the throne while the others were waiting at a doorway on the rear of the throne room. “Of course,” Mellinda said, her cheeks reddening with embarrassment.

“This way,” said the Troll King. “The Mother awaits.”

The king exited the throne room and Murtha gave Mellinda an assessing glare before following at his heels. Murtha wore a ragged dress made of animal skins. She was the only trollkin Mellinda had seen wearing a dress. Perhaps she saw herself as the king’s consort? Whatever she was, the half-dwarf held some importance to the king. Mellinda knew that if she couldn’t win the creature over sooner or later she would have to kill her.

Mellinda stepped out of the throne room and onto a crumbling stone balcony. She moved to the balcony’s edge, pausing for a moment to take in the view. The Troll King’s throne room was at the top of the Axis Palace, the tallest building in Malaroo. It was a pyramidal structure made of enormous rock slabs carved by Roo artisans and the home of generations of Roo High Priestesses. From this vantage point she could see the whole of KhanzaRoo as well as most of the swamps surrounding it.

KhanzaRoo had once been one of the greatest cities in the known lands. A marvel of engineering, it was built on top of unstable shifting swampland. Yet it had thrived. This was because Roo people had made a city that breathed with the swamp. The permanent structures had been made with foundations sunk deep into the earth below, while the smaller homes and businesses had been made out of wood and anchored to the grassy islands that shifted with the waters. It had all been linked together by rope bridges and rafts that floated on top of the water and could be moved and re-anchored when needed.

But those glory days were a thousand years gone. The wooden structures and rafts had long rotted away and been reclaimed by the swamp. Now only the crumbling remains of the most well-built stone buildings marked the location of the once prosperous city. The current state of KhanzaRoo would have left her with a mixture of sadness and satisfaction, had she not been filled with irritation at Arcon’s incessant droning.

“Pig, tortoise, horse, cow, frog, rabbit, mountain cat, mist bronto . . .”

“Is something troubling you, Mellinda?” asked the Troll King. The tall leader of the trollkin was waiting for her next to a staircase that descended from the far end of the balcony. His human eye was fixed on her with curiosity.

“I am well, my king,” Mellinda assured him. This king was perceptive. She was confident that she had let no hint of her frustration touch her face. “I simply feel a bit of sadness at KhanzaRoo’s current state.”

Her words were partially true. When Mellinda was a child, KhanzaRoo had been her favorite place to visit. Then again, when Mellinda had been a goddess, she had choked and overwhelmed the city with her armies of trolls.

“Snake,” Arcon added, an accusatory note in his voice.

The king, unable to hear the snide comment of the human mage trapped inside of Mellinda’s mind, simply nodded in understanding. “Yes, my city is a shambles. But that will soon change. My people work hard to bring KhanzaRoo back to its glory. Already they have cleared most of the buildings of trees and vines. It will go faster as our numbers grow.”

“They have done admirably,” she said, bowing her head slightly. “And just how quickly are the trollkin growing?”

The right side of his face gave her a slight smile. “The Mother births more of us every day, but . . . you will see.”

Mellinda smiled and inclined her head again. From her short time among the trollkin, she estimated that they numbered no more than three hundred. For her army to be effective she would need more. A lot more.

The Troll King turned and descended the stairway that snaked down the palace’s terraced outer wall. As she followed the king and his assistant, Mellinda could see the result of the trollkin’s hard work. Though sections of the palace were still blanketed by vines, all of the sections in use had been completely scraped clean. The stairway, though cracked and weathered, was clear save for one place half way down where a tenacious swamp tree had grown out of the side of the palace. The trollkin had cut the offending tree down, leaving a flat stump. Its roots bored into the rock of the palace like spider legs.

They passed the stump and rounded the corner of the pyramid and Mellinda saw that the staircase continued all the way down to the base of the pyramid where a small courtyard butted up to the edge of a small lake. A distant memory entered Mellinda’s mind and she knew where they were headed.

“We are going to the High Priestess’ gardens?” she surmised pointing at the shoreline below. To call the shoreline of that lake within the swamp a garden now was a bit ridiculous. It was an overgrown tangle of vines. But once it had been full of exotic flowers and fruit trees.

The Troll King slowed his descent and looked back at her. “I do not know what this location was once called but that is where the Mother’s womb will greet us, yes.”

“Her womb is here?” Mellinda asked. She had expected it to be some distance away, further into the swamp.

“The Mother is everywhere. Her womb is wherever she wants it to be,” said Murtha, narrowing her eyes.

“Chipmunk, ox, bear,” added Arcon.

“Murtha is correct,” the Troll King said. “Her womb was not always here, but she moved it once she had chosen this city for our people.”

“I see.” So she could move parts of her body great distances now? This was more evidence that the Troll Mother had changed greatly since Mellinda had last been here.

The Troll King continued walking down the stairs and Murtha let out a short hiss, before turning around and trailing after him. Mellinda caught herself chewing her lower lip. It was an old habit from her childhood that she had picked back up recently. It mainly happened when she was deep in thought and Arcon was droning on.

“Pigeon, donkey, sparrow . . . uh, sock-.”

Sock isn’t an animal, you idiot! Mellinda snapped and her knees buckled, causing her legs to bow out bonelessly. She nearly fell.

Arcon laughed. “It threw off your concentration though, didn’t it?”

Silence! she barked back at him mentally as she forced her legs back into proper form. You gain nothing with your annoyances!

“Ah, but annoying you is the only true pleasure I have left,” Arcon replied. “Deer, pheasant, boar, snail, worm, mouse . . .”

Mellinda growled under her breath and pushed his voice as far to the back of her mind as she could. Unfortunately, the body was his and her grasp on his mind was slippery. The mage had learned much in his time under her control and no matter how far away she shoved him, he always found a way to come back. Oh how she wished she could tear him from her thoughts and extinguish him altogether.

As she neared the base of the stairs, the air grew thicker with humidity and her nostrils were filled with the slightly chemical scent that was unique to the Troll Swamps. She breathed it in with satisfaction, reminding herself that this was all her doing. Whatever her current petty setbacks, she was still Mellinda, the Dark Goddess; the Troll Queen. The world had once trembled at her name and it was only a matter of time before her full glory was reattained.

Two trollkin waited for them at the bottom of the stairs. One had a mangled nose, protruding fangs and cat-like ears, while the other was incredibly thin and exuded a yellowish slime. They grinned at the Troll King’s arrival and called out to him. He smiled back at them and called them out by name, patting them on the shoulders as he strode by.

Mellinda raised one eyebrow at the familiarity in which the king addressed his subjects. This may be easier than I thought. They do not fear him.

Arcon paused in his litany long enough to respond, “Look at their eyes. They adore him. You put too much stock in fear.”

She let out a soft chuckle. You will see how easily their adoration for him fades when someone with true power comes along.

The Troll King noted her amusement. “Do you have something to say, Snake Woman?”

Her smile slid. “No, my king. I was just admiring the rapport you have with your subjects.”

His human eye twitched and he gestured at the two trollkin. “This is Omar and Trelsk. I pulled them from the Mother’s womb two days ago.”

“Two days?” she said. “Yet they speak and move like fully formed adults.”

The two new trollkin looked at each other and the one called Trelsk said, “Why would we not speak?”

Murtha frowned. “We are all born that way, snake-k. Not like-k you weak-k humans.”

“It is a gift from the Mother,” explained the Troll King. “She teaches us in the womb so that we awaken strong and aware.”

“They are born as adults.” Arcon said in surprise.

Fantastic, isn’t it? They emerge able to communicate and understand orders. Her army would be so much greater than the regular troll army she had intended to build. She just needed to make sure that they would follow her.

“Omar?” she said and the trollkin with the cat-like ears looked down at her in curiosity. She pointed at his twisted lump of a nose. “You poor thing. Can you breathe?”

He blinked at her and she could tell that he was sensitive about his disfigurement. “I breathe.”

“Oh, but you will breathe so much better,” she purred and reached into him with her power, her fingers writhing bonelessly with the energy of the rings.

She had been using the rings for over a month now and she was still impressed by the complexity of Stardeon’s creation. The rings established a link between her mind and the body of the creature before her. This link was much like a bonding wizard had with his bonded, but it was linked with its physiology only. She couldn’t hear the creature’s thoughts or emotions, but she could feel and see within its body.

This trollkin didn’t just have a facial deformity. The very bone structure of his skull was twisted. This was why his fangs protruded from his mouth so strangely. This most likely also gave him chronic headaches; something else that he would be grateful to have relieved. Fixing these defects would be a delicate procedure, requiring her to move large blood vessels out of the way while she reconfigured the bone. Carefully, she poured her magic into the trollkin’s flesh-.

“Fish, chicken, duck, goose!”

Arcon’s voice was as loud in her ears as if he were shouting right into them. Mellinda jerked in surprise and the trollkin screeched in pain. Blood erupted from one of Omar’s nostrils in several long spurts.

“Omar!” shouted the king.

Hurriedly, Mellinda shoved Arcon’s voice away and repaired the ruptured artery. She then moved on to his bone structure. Omar continued to screech as she worked and just as Mellinda put the finishing touches on the flesh of his face, she was tackled by the king’s assistant.

“What did you do to him?” Murtha demanded. Her weight pinned Mellinda to the ground and the long talons on her fingertips pierced deeply into the flesh of Mellinda’s arms.

Mellinda’s first instinct was to destroy her. It would have been so easy to use the rings’ power to explode the trollkin from within as Ewzad Vriil had done so many times in the past. If it weren’t for Arcon cheerfully egging her on, she might have done so. Instead, Mellinda ignored the pain of Murtha’s attack. Her voice was calm as she said, “I fixed him. Look for yourself.”

“My face!” Omar exclaimed. Touching his new features with trembling fingers. All traces of his former disfigurement were gone. He now had a proud human nose and his fangs no longer protruded oddly, but had been shortened and fit snuggly in the proper place in his mouth. “It’s different.”

“Murtha, let her go!” the king commanded.

“How many more of us will she change?” the half-dwarf replied, her grip tightening. Mellinda gasped with the pain.

“It is okay. It hurt but I-I am better,” said Omar, a smile touching his mouth. “Look at my face, Trelsk!”

“Let her up, Murtha,” the king said, placing a hand on his assistant’s shoulder.

Murtha glared at Mellinda but reluctantly released her and stood. She stomped several paces away and grumbled.

Mellinda groaned as the pressure was relieved. She climbed shakily to her feet, unused to being attacked in such a physical manner.

“How badly are you hurt, Snake Woman?” the king asked. “The wounds on your arms-.”

“I heal swiftly, my king. In that way I am not so different from your people,” she assured him. Fast healing was one of the benefits that had come from turning the power of the rings inward. She could feel the magic working. The wounds had already stopped bleeding and, though they were tender, they itched more than hurt.

“Good.” The king’s human arm shot out and his powerful fingers wrapped around Mellinda’s slender neck. “Then hear me, snake. You will not use your magic on any of my people without permission. Do you understand?”

His grip was firm, but not so tight that she couldn’t reply. “Of course, my king. I apologize. I meant no harm.”

The king glanced at Omar, who was still feeling his face in shocked amazement, and nodded. He released her from his grasp. “Come. Let us put this magic of yours to good use.”

He headed down a trail that curved along the outer edge of the swamp lake. Murtha hurried after him. Mellinda cleared her throat and followed, ignoring the lumbering forms of Omar and Trelsk that shadowed her.

What were you thinking, you fool? she demanded. That was very nearly a disaster!

“Did I disrupt you?” Arcon replied, joyfully feigning surprise. “I thought that my voice was as a mere ‘buzzing of a fly’.”

The trail led them to the north side of the lake. There they came upon the ruins of several small stone buildings that had become completely overgrown. Standing between the ruins was a single stone chair that faced the water. It was eroded and covered with moss, but there were just enough carvings on the chair’s surface that Mellinda’s memories were awakened.

They were standing in Solitude, the center of the gardens. It was a holy place, the one location in all of KhanzaRoo where the High Priestess had been able to find complete respite from the rigors of her position. When the High Priestess sat in the Lone Chair, no one was allowed to approach. None dared even speak until she stood to leave.

The last time Mellinda had been in Solitude, KhanzaRoo had been abandoned by its people. She, the Troll Queen; sole ruler of the swamplands of Malaroo, had sat in the Lone Chair herself. But unlike the Roo High Priestesses of old, she had found no peace there. The gardens had been dead, poisoned by the thick layer of troll slime that covered the surface of the water. The air had reeked from the stench of the bloated corpses of the ornamental fish that had once populated the lake and her magical control over her vast troll army had been the only thing keeping the place quiet.

Now, a thousand years later, life had found a way to re-enter the lake. Though a thin layer of slime still coated the waters and the flowers that bloomed were foreign and strange, it was lush and green. Solitude felt like a holy place once more.

The Troll King approached the Lone Chair and Mellinda began chewing her bottom lip again. As he sat in the chair there was a certain regal rightness about him that set her on edge. Despite the ragged condition of his raiment and the deformities that marked him, he belonged in this place.

“It bothers you, doesn’t it?” Arcon observed, his voice smug. “You hate the thought of someone else ruling your old homeland.”

Mellinda smoothed her expression. It will be mine again soon enough.

There was a splash at the lake’s edge. A thin, lanky form climbed out of the water and rose to its feet. It was naked and sexless and at first glance Mellinda thought it a common troll. Then she noticed its very human mouth and eyes. It approached the king with easy strides, its clawed hands clasped together, and gave the king a reverent bow.

“The Mother’s womb stirs.” Its voice was raspy, with a distinctly aristocratic accent.

“Where are my cullers?” the king asked.

“They are at work in the city. It is an odd time of day for her to birth, is it not?” it asked.

The Troll King looked to Murtha. “Go and fetch them for me.”

The half dwarf glanced nervously in Mellinda’s direction, not wanting to leave him with her. “I c-can do it, k-king. I was your c-culler once.”

“Alone?” he asked.

“Omar and Trelsk-k c-can help me,” she suggested and the two bulky trollkin nodded happily at being offered such an honorable task.

“If I might ask, oh king,” said the troll with the human mouth. “Why does the Mother stir at this hour?”

“I have brought her a visitor,” the Troll King replied, gesturing towards Mellinda.

It looked at her and cocked its head, noticing her for the first time. “Ah! You have found the snake, I see.”

Mellinda ignored Arcon’s laughter and forced a sultry smile. “My name is Mellinda.” She extended her hand towards him, palm down. “I have known the Mother for a very long time.”

“Of course.” It took her proffered hand in the traditional manner of the Roo nobility, resting its forefinger just under the base of her fingers. “I am the First. The Mother has told me much about you.”

“Has she?” said Mellinda, arching an eyebrow. This creature was a mystery.

“It makes you wonder just how much they know. Doesn’t it?” Arcon asked.

“Indeed,” said the First. He bent and gently kissed her knuckles just as one of the ruling house would greet a minor priestess.

Intriguing, she thought. How does a creature such as this know proper court etiquette?

“Maybe his goddess taught it to him in the womb,” Arcon suggested. “Like the Troll King said.”

Not likely. What would she know of it? Mellinda replied. Aloud she said, “And what has the Mother said about me?”

The First opened his mouth to respond, but the Troll King grunted and he paused, changing what he was going to say. “She says that your power is to be respected.” He dropped her hand and turned back to the king. “She comes.”

As if in response, the ground rumbled beneath their feet. The calm waters of the lake rippled and shook as something moved in the depths. Slowly an enormous dark form rose towards the surface.

A dome of glistening greenish flesh rose from the slimy waters. It continued upwards until it was the size of a hill, the top of it twice the height of a troll. The width of it took up a large portion of the lake.

Mellinda’s eyes fell on a puckered spot in the side of the dome. As she watched, it twisted and opened up into a gaping cave-like hole. A musky odor rolled from the opening and a small flood of slime poured out, pooling on the grassy shoreline.

Mellinda stared with open fascination. So this was the mother’s womb. She took a step forward and peered into the darkness within. A chorus of pained screeches echoed from the opening and she flinched back. A large hand fell upon her shoulder and she looked up to see the Troll King standing beside her.

“They will start emerging soon. Are you ready to prove your worth?” he asked.

“Of course, my king,” she assured him. “What is it exactly that you want me to do?”

“Use this magic of yours. Fix those that need it,” he explained.

“This is why the Mother allowed you to approach us,” added the First.

“This snake can do that?” Murtha asked, and this time as she looked at Mellinda her distrust faded slightly, replaced with something akin to hope.

“You wish me to fix the newly born like I fixed the others?” Mellinda asked, a confident smile spreading across her face. “I would be happy to.”

The Troll King hesitated. “The issues you fixed so far were minor. These will likely need much more help. Less than half of the trollkin birthed are able to join our people.”

“They come out broken,” said Omar.

“How terrible,” Mellinda said, sudden concern welling up within her. If the Troll Mother was struggling to create her people it would be a blow to her plans. “What is wrong with them?”

As if in answer, a creature burst from the cave-like opening of the mother’s womb. It was tall and thin. The lower half of its body was covered with a coarse fur and its upper body was that of a troll, green and glistening. But its head was a misshapen lump, as if its flesh had been half-formed and then melted. Large sections of its skull were exposed to the air and one eye wasn’t even in its socket, but instead stared out of the side of its cheek.

Murtha moved quickly, running up to the side of the mound and pulling it onto the grass. With brute strength she pulled its arms behind its back and held it still. The newborn creature thrashed in her grip, screaming with pain and disorientation. Mellinda saw both troll and human teeth in its twisted mouth.

Mellinda swallowed. Repairing a creature this malformed was going to prove much more difficult than she had thought.

The Troll King approached and placed a palm on the creature’s chest. Somehow his touch calmed it. It stopped struggling and its screams turned to whispers.

He turned back to look at her, a grin on the human side of his face. “He recognizes me as his king. He can beat back the hunger. His is mind is good! Come, fix him!”

“Oh, this will be fun,” Arcon said and Mellinda knew that he was already planning ways to distract her.

She hesitated, chewing her lip again.

“Is there something wrong, Mellinda?” asked the king.

“N-no, my king,” she said. “However, I must prepare myself mentally for this,” Mellinda continued, holding on to her composure. “It will take but a moment if you will bear with me.”

“Do as you must, but hurry,” the king said warily. “More will be born soon.”

Mellinda took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Arcon, I demand you desist your childish taunting immediately. I will need every last drop of concentration to succeed.

“All the more reason for me to continue,” he replied gleefully. “I’ll start with listing ocean animals for now. Fish, whale, eel, oyster, crab, uh . . . fish-.”

Mellinda snarled inwardly. Fish again? That is all you could come up with? Not pike or bass or trout?

“My parents were farmers, not fishermen,” Arcon explained with a mental shrug. “Types of fish weren’t in my field of study.”

Enough! These trollkin could kill us if I fail in this, she suggested.

“Not likely,” replied Arcon. “They have no magic. With the power of the rings at your disposal you could simply paralyze them. They could not touch us.”

Even so, what good does it do you to ruin my plans? We share this body together. My pain is your pain. My success is your success.

“Yeah, I don’t agree with that,” Arcon said. “We don’t share my body. You stole it from me. The only reason I’m still around is that you haven’t figured out a way to get rid of me.”

Mellinda didn’t bother to argue that point. You still cling to the hope that you can reclaim your body, do you not? Would you not want to be in the best situation possible if that were to happen?

“Dear Mellinda,” Arcon replied mockingly. “I am fairly certain that the only way I could reclaim my body is if you intentionally gave the control back to me. We both know that isn’t going to happen.”

Then what good does your continued harassment
. . ? She stopped herself. That line of manipulation wouldn’t get her anywhere with him. What she needed was a good threat. But in what way could she still hurt him? A slow smile spread across her face.

And what if I were to bed this King? Mellinda threatened. She turned back and opened her eyes letting her gaze linger on the muscles of the Troll King’s body.

Arcon didn’t reply for a moment and Mellinda knew she had hit a sore nerve. The mage had still not adjusted to the fact that she had changed his body. Inhabiting a female form was uncomfortable for him and she knew that the thought of experiencing this body used in such a way would be very disturbing for him.

Arcon gave her a mental snort. “Trolls do not have genitalia. Look at the First.”

These people aren’t mere trolls. Have you not paid attention? Each one of them is a unique mix of beasts and thus can be male or female. Many of them could reproduce in the manner of men. Why else do you think that they wear clothing?

Arcon did not have an answer for this.

She chuckled. I have already scanned the Troll King’s body with the rings just to be sure. I must say the Mother made him well.

“If you go through with your threat, so be it!” Arcon snarled. “I will endure what I have to and in the meantime I will make your existence as miserable as possible.”

“Are you ready, Snake Woman?” The king asked impatiently.

“I will be shortly,” she assured him, trying to keep the frustration out of her voice.

Mellinda sighed. No threat was going to work. There was only one piece of leverage she had left. Very well. I see that there is no other way. I will make you a deal.

“And what could you possibly offer me?”

I will return control of your body to you.

Arcon laughed. “Lies! You would never give up control, especially not over something so petty!”

You are correct. I wouldn’t give your body back right away, she admitted. However, that isn’t what I am offering.

“Then what is it?”

Partner with me. We worked together before. Help me take my revenge and I will give your body back.

“Your revenge? On your old people?”

Yes! I would destroy the Roo! But not just them! I would slaughter those ancient elves who defied me and burn the Jharro Grove to the ground!

“Riiight,” he said dubiously. “We do all that and then you’ll give my body back.”

Yes! She poured every ounce of sincerity she could summon into her words. Everything I have done, groveling to the Dark Prophet, even enslaving myself to Ewzad Vriil, it was all to get me here! And I am so close. I just need to raise this army. Arcon, help me get the revenge long denied me and I will have completed my purpose. I swear on my soul that I will return your body to your control.

“And I have to help you do this?” From his tone, she knew that he didn’t believe that she actually thought she needed him. Which was true.

I merely ask that you cease your harassment completely, she said.

At that moment another chorus of screeches came from the Mother’s womb. Another creature, this one even more malformed than the one before it, tumbled out of the opening and hit the shoreline. It tried to stand on uneven legs and toppled over just as Omar and Trelsk grabbed it.

“Enough preparation!” the king snapped. “Prove yourself now, Snake Woman!”

“I am ready,” she said and strode over to Murtha, who was still holding the first creature. Do we have a deal, mage?

“Can you fix these things even if I keep quiet?” Arcon asked.

I have the knowledge. I did far greater things in the past, she replied. But I’m using your brain, which isn’t as sharp as mine once was and . . . She raised her hands and looked at the gemstones of the Rings of Stardeon that glinted on the backs of her fingers. I’m still getting used to the way these powers work.

“Very well. Prove yourself to them,” he said. “I will stay silent. For now. I was running out of animals anyway.”

Thank you, she said. Mellinda smiled with satisfaction as she went to work.

Chapter Two

“King Demetrius Vriil?” said Sir Edge. From the way the named warrior’s eye twitched as he pondered the concept, Willum could tell that he found it both intriguing and disturbing. Willum knew the feeling. He had felt the same way when the imp had first suggested the plan.

“If things go as planned, that is,” Willum said. “I was surprised when Demetrius agreed to the idea, frankly.”

They paused their conversation for a moment to climb over the thick trunk of a tree that had fallen across the road. It was once a large leafy evergreen that looked like it had been killed by an insect infestation. The branches held just a handful of dry waxy leaves and the trunk was mottled and pitted.

“Stop!” shouted Jhonate bin Leeths, Sir Edge’s betrothed. She was still standing in front of the fallen tree and her striking green eyes flashed as she pointed her Jharro staff at her brother who had stepped over the trunk with the rest of them. “Clear the road, Qurl. We should not leave this obstruction here.”

Qurl scowled back at her. He was the Protector of the Grove’s fourth son and the highest ranking of the score of Roo-Tan warriors that were ‘escorting’ the party. He had been put in charge and obviously did not like his sister giving him orders. “This will only delay us.”

“And what would father say? You would leave this tree to hamper some poor farmer heading home with his cart?” she asked, hands on her hips. “Come, it will not take long.”

Qurl sighed. He shouted out to the score of warriors that were spread out along the road. “Clear the tree!”

Several of them gathered around the fallen tree, their Jharro weapons forming sharp edges. They began hacking the thick trunk into pieces that could be easily moved. Surprisingly, the Jharro blades cut through the wood as if they were made of steel.

Willum realized that in the weeks he had been traveling Malaroo’s roads, this was the first fallen tree he had come across. It was a miracle considering how densely forested the country was. Xedrion must take his roads seriously, he remarked mentally.

“He’s the general of the Roo-Tan armies, Willy,” replied Theodore from within Willum’s axe. “Blocked roads slow armies.”

“You believe that the nobles are seriously considering this?” Edge asked Willum, as the other men worked. “I mean, after what we went through with Ewzad, the name Vriil . . .”

“He knows,” said Djeri, his voice dull. Willum glanced his way, but the dwarf’s helmet hid his expression. He was wearing his uncle’s famous platemail armor, polished to a mirror-like finish, the Firegobbler insignia on his chest gleaming like a red and gold beacon in the sunlight. This was the first time Djeri had spoken to them since leaving Roo-Tan’lan. The dwarf wasn’t usually this silent. Willum wondered what was bothering him. He knew that Djeri didn’t like how many Roo-Tan warriors they were bringing back to camp, but it was more than that. He was probably worried about Tarah.

“I hope you took no offense, Willum,” said Sir Edge.

“How could I be offended?” Willum replied. He had more reason to hate his heritage than most. “As for the plan, I didn’t think it would work either, but Demetrius seemed pretty confident in the last letter he sent me. He claims he has several influential noble families on his side and that those opposing him are under a lot of pressure from the populous.” He shrugged. “But that was weeks ago. For all I know it has fallen apart since.”

“Nonsense, Willy,” said the imp, who was monitoring the conversation as usual. He couldn’t hear Willum’s thoughts unless they were directed at him, but the imp listened to everything. “The plan will work without fail. Trust me. Ho! You humans are so easily manipulated.”

“I do not understand why there should be any difficulty,” said Jhonate with her usual formal tone. She wore a slight frown on her face as she watched her fellow warriors dissect the fallen tree. “Lord Commander Demetrius is an excellent candidate for the position. He is an accomplished leader who has proven himself in battle. Is there anyone more qualified?”

“Well, uh, no. But that has nothing to do with it,” Willum said. He opened his mouth to say more but hesitated on how to proceed.

He didn’t consider himself to be close with Sir Edge’s betrothed. Jhonate seemed to respect his combat skills and allowed him to call her by her first name, but she wasn’t exactly friendly. In fact, she could be scary at times. He had felt a distinct uneasiness when she had insisted that she come along to meet Tarah Woodblade. Willum had a feeling that the two women wouldn’t get along.

“Most Dremaldrian’s would agree with you, Jhonate,” said Sir Edge, rescuing him. “At least, the peasants would. But the nobles are the ones who decide who will be king and, among the nobility, the standing of a person’s house is more important than their prowess in battle.”

“How nonsensical,” Jhonate replied.

Jhonate’s brother Qurl snorted in agreement and muttered something about, “Dry-foot politics.”

“Pfft! It’s the way of all the nobles in all the world, Willy,” said Theodore. Though Willum was the only one that could hear him, the imp’s voice sounded loud in his ears. “Roo-Tan nobles aren’t any different. Look at the ribbons they wear in their braids. They denote which of Xedrion’s wives is their mother.”

Willum’s eyes lingered on the Roo-Tan siblings. The ribbons woven into the braids on either side of Jhonate’s face were the same green as her eyes, while Qurl’s ribbons were a deep red. So?

“So? Ho-ho, Willy. It’s just another way for them to keep track of status within their house,” the imp explained. “Didn’t you notice the color of the Protector’s braids earlier?”

No. Willum replied mentally. He thought back to his uncomfortable first meeting with Xedrion back in Roo-Tan’lan’s prison. Well, the ribbons were green, if I remember right.

“See, Willy? Oh, how that must burn the rest of his wives! It’s a visible reminder to everyone who sees him that he favors Jhonate’s mother above the others.” The imp giggled. “He can shift the status of the members in his house at a whim. All he would have to do is change the color of the ribbons in his braids and the balance of power in Malaroo would change.”

How do you know so much about politics among the Roo-Tan? Willum asked. Theodore had been around a very long time. Exactly how long Willum didn’t know, but surely that didn’t make him an expert in everything.

“Oh, Willy. Long before Tad the Cunning dug me up I spent some time here in the hands of the merpeople. Ho! I know a lot more about this country than I ever wanted to.”

That sounds like a story I would like to hear, Willum replied. The imp was still such a mystery to him. It was hard to get him to talk about his past unless he was bragging about something.

“Meh, maybe later,” the imp replied.

The tree was soon sectioned and cleared, Sir Edge’s rogue horse helping the men move the larger chunks of the tree. Jhonate ordered the wood left in piles beside the road in case any passers-by wanted it and the party continued on their way, heading southwest towards the camp where Willum and Djeri had left Tarah.

“Just over a mile to go,” Djeri announced as they crested a hill. Willum knew he should be able to make out the area where they had camped from here, but the whole country was so thickly forested it all looked the same to him.

Willum felt a heavy nudge at his hip and nearly stumbled as Gwyrtha came up close, the massive creature nuzzling his side. To his surprise, she bared her sharp teeth at him in a frightening mockery of a smile. That was a new behavior from her. He forced a smile back at her and reached out to scratch her behind the ears as he had seen Sir Edge do numerous times.

The rogue horse was a fearsome beast; a patchwork mix of horse and lizard and various other creatures, but Willum had come to know her pretty well over his time at the Mage School during the war and knew that she was sweet at heart.

“Uh, hello, girl,” he said. She huffed back at him, a throaty sound akin to a purr.

“Oh-ho, the power, Willy,” said Theodore, his voice full of longing. “I can feel it coursing through her veins. There is so much I could accomplish. Why, with just a sip I could-.”

You are not feeding on another rogue horse, Theodore! Willum said, cutting him off. Especially not Sir Edge’s bonded.

“Why, Willy! Of course I’m not suggesting such a thing. Ho! How little you must think of me!” Theodore protested. The imp had gotten a taste of rogue horse blood during their failed attempt to save Esmine from Scholar Aloysius. He brought up the experience constantly since. “Nevertheless, if perhaps, the beast was wounded accidentally-. Or in battle for some reason and you should accidentally drop the axe on top of her blood . . .”

Shut up, imp, Willum warned.

“She’s letting you know she likes you, Willum,” said Sir Edge, walking up close to him.

Willum jumped at the sound of his voice, feeling a surge of guilt about his conversation with the imp. “Uh, yeah. Gwyrtha and I are friends. Aren’t we, girl?”

“Tell me something, Willum,” Edge said, a speculative look on his face.

“Sure,” he said.

“Why all the secrecy?” the named warrior asked.

“What do you mean?” Willum replied.

“You two have been acting strange. Jerry isn’t talking at all. You’re willing to tell me about the local gossip from Dremaldria, but when it comes to the demon army or what you’re even doing in Malaroo, you’re tight-lipped.” He pointed a finger at Willum. “And you’re jumpy.”

“That had nothing to do with-.” Willum saw Djeri’s helmet turn as the dwarf gave him a warning glance. “We’ll explain everything after you meet Tarah.”

“That’s what you said earlier,” said Sir Edge.

“We’re almost there,” Willum said. “We’ll tell you everything soon.”

Edge stopped walking and folded his arms. “I want to know now.”

“Stop everyone, Qurl!” announced Jhonate suddenly. She was several yards away, yet seemed to be perfectly in step with Edge’s thoughts.

Qurl raised a closed fist and the procession came to a halt. “What is it?”

Jhonate raised an eyebrow in Willum’s direction. “My betrothed needs to have a conversation with our academy friends before we proceed.”

“Uh-oh, Willy. Looks like that plan of the dwarf’s is blowing up in your faces,” chuckled the imp.

“We really are close,” Willum said to Edge, ignoring the imp.

“Is that so?” Sir Edge said, his form immovable. He was an imposing figure; near a half foot taller than Willum and his short-sleeved linen shirt did nothing to hide the enormous muscles brought on by his bond with the ogre. The hilts of his swords stuck up over each shoulder, along with his quiver and unstrung Jharro bow. “Deathclaw has been scouting ahead and he says there’s nothing there.”

“Oh. Well, Tarah’s really good at hiding,” said Willum lamely.

“From Deathclaw?” Edge said. Deathclaw’s senses were sharp and he was an excellent tracker. Explaining this one away would be hard.

Djeri cleared his throat. “It’ll make sense when we get there, Sir Edge. Trust me.”

“What is this about, Edge?” Qurl asked. The Roo-Tan warrior came closer, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Do you think this is a trap?”

“I doubt that these two would be involved with such a thing,” said Jhonate. “But there is something odd about the situation.”

The rest of the Roo-Tan warriors began to gather tighter around them. Djeri tensed and his hands twitched, ready to reach for his sword. Willum prayed he wouldn’t do anything so stupid. This wasn’t worth fighting about.

Sir Edge raised a calming hand. “I’ll get this sorted out. Come with me, Willum.”

The named warrior turned and walked off of the road. Willum moved after him and glanced over at Djeri. The dwarf sighed and started to follow.

“No. You stay here. I think it’s best I talk to him alone,” Edge said. The dwarf scoffed and he added, “I like you, Jerry, but I know Willum better. I think this silent treatment is your idea.”

“This is ridiculous!” the dwarf protested. “We are allies. Why do you treat us like common enemies?”

Edge shook his head. “Stop your blustering. Enemies would be in chains. Besides, allies wouldn’t hide the truth.”

“It’s really not that big of a deal,” Willum said, but Edge was walking again. Willum shrugged at Djeri and followed after him. He knew that the dwarf was scowling at him under that helmet, but he didn’t care. He actually felt relieved that he wouldn’t have to hold the information back anymore.

The named warrior led him a short distance into the trees until they were out of view of the others, then turned around and looked at Willum expectantly. “Now. We’re alone. You can tell me what’s going on.”

“And no one is listening in?” Willum said.

“Gwyrtha says they’re not,” Edge replied.

“No one’s nearby, Willy,” the imp agreed.

“Alright,” said Willum. “I wasn’t lying when I said it wasn’t that big of a deal.”

“Then why hold back?”

“Djeri wanted to make sure we got back to Tarah before telling the Roo-Tan everything about us,” Willum explained. “You know, just in case Jhonate’s father decided to hold us in the prison. It was the only leverage we had.”

“You were coming to warn him of a threat to his people,” Edge said in exasperation. “Don’t you think he would be grateful?”

“Look, we know how the Roo-Tan feel about outsiders in their country. And from what we hear, Jhonate’s father isn’t exactly nice to visitors.”

“Well . . . that’s true,” Edge replied, inclining his head in acknowledgement. “But you can’t just tell the Protector of the Grove that there’s an army coming, then hold back important information. He’s not a stupid man. He knew. Why do you think he sent twenty men with us? He might have done worse than throw you in a cell.”

“We were relying on your help,” Willum explained. “The only reason we came to the city was because we heard that you and Jhonate were there.”

Edge sighed and ran a weary hand through his hair. “That’s probably the only thing that saved you. Your timing was terrible, though. Yesterday was a very hard day. I’m surprised Xedrion didn’t simply send out an army to capture your friends.”

“Tarah wouldn’t let herself be captured,” Willum assured him. He also didn’t add that, if Jhonate’s father had kept them imprisoned, Tarah would have been able to sneak into Roo-Tan’lan and free them whenever she chose.

“Just tell me what you’ve been holding back. What are you doing in Malaroo?”

“We weren’t lying when we told the protector that we were following that demon army,” Willum said. “But in truth, the real reason we’re here is the gnome that’s leading them.”

Edge’s brow rose. “A gnome leads them?”

“His name is Aloysius and he’s not just any gnome,” Willum said.

He told the named warrior about Tarah’s magical tracking ability and how she and Djeri had shown up at Coal’s Keep looking for help. Then he told him how they had put a party together to rescue the rogue horse and finally, how they had failed to save her.

“Gwyrtha remembers a rogue horse named Esmine that was one of Stardeon’s favorites,” said Sir Edge. “She could turn herself invisible.”

“Yes. That’s her,” Willum.

“Gwyrtha never saw her again after the rogue horses were scattered.” He shook his head sadly. “To think she survived on her own all these centuries just to be slaughtered like that.”

“Yeah,” Willum replied. “We killed most of the dwarf smugglers and disrupted the ceremony but in the end all we accomplished was keeping Aloysius from binding Esmine’s soul to his sword. Tarah was somehow able to battle him mentally and pull its soul into her staff instead.”

“Wait. Woodblade has the soul of that rogue horse bound to her staff?” Sir Edge replied, his eyes wide. “Like the same way the imp is bound to your axe?”

“Pretty much,” Willum said with a nod.

“I can see why she would want to keep it a secret,” Edge said. “That staff must be a powerful weapon.”

Willum hesitated about what to say next. “About that. The staff can-.”

“Don’t tell him everything,” the imp warned.

I’m not going to lie to him, Willum replied and said aloud, “Tarah is still learning the extent of what it can do. But being bound to that staff has given Esmine the ability to make people see what she wants them to see.”

“Illusions,” Edge said in understanding. “So that’s how you were able to come all this way into Malaroo without being caught.”

“Actually, that part wasn’t all that hard,” Willum said. “Aloysius’ imps distracted all the Roo-Tan patrols with magic. Tarah’s main focus was keeping us hidden from the army.”

The named warrior rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Do you know why the army is here?”

“I think Tarah does,” Willum replied. She had been scouring the enemy tracks for memories that would help them know Aloysius’ plans. “But she’s been pretty vague about it. Maybe she told Djeri. It’s hard to say. Ever since we left the others at the border, she’s been more and more secretive.”

“The others? Who did you leave behind?”

“Well, the academy wouldn’t condone sending any of its warriors into Malaroo uninvited. So Swen, Helmet Jan, and Dinnis left. They were ordered to travel to Reneul and report to the Academy Council,” Willum sighed. “There was a bit of a dust up over it, too. Tarah felt betrayed. To her, nothing is more important than taking Aloysius down.”

“So you and Jerry are here against orders?” Edge said in surprise.

Willum shook his head. “I’m not under academy orders. I’ve been on leave since the war ended. I still haven’t decided if I’m going back to the academy or not. As for Djeri, he resigned from his duties when the orders came. Tarah is his main concern right now. They’re uh . . . together.”

Sir Edge blinked at that for a moment, then shrugged. “Well uh, good for them, I guess. So it’s just you and Djeri and Tarah and Benjo here now? Four people tracking down an army?”

Willum couldn’t tell if the named warrior was impressed with their bravery or if he thought they were idiots. “Actually, I sent Benjo back to Coal’s Keep. He’s great with a spear, but of all of us he had the least amount of training and I couldn’t face Becca if something happened to him. Cletus is still with us, though. And as eccentric as he may be, when it comes to battle, he’s worth a small army on his own.”

“Then what’s your plan now?” Edge asked. “You bring us to meet Tarah Woodblade, then what?”

“We’re hoping that the Roo-Tan will help us stop Aloysius. No one else has been willing to. Not even the Alberri Mage School or the Alberri government.”

Despite the danger, Scholar Tobias had bravely gone back to the capital to plead their case. He and the rest of his “resistance” hoped to build up support in case Tarah failed and Aloysius came back from Malaroo to conquer his own people. Willum doubted it would do much good. Tobias didn’t exactly come off as a credible witness.

“Well if you want Xedrion’s help, the secretiveness has to stop,” said Sir Edge. “He’s not going to put up with a foreign army in his country, but if he doesn’t feel he can trust you, you’re likely to find yourselves locked away again or expelled from the country.”

“I’ll talk to Tarah and Djeri about it,” Willum promised him.

“You do that. I’ll be sure to let them know my feelings on it as well,” Edge said. His eye twitched as if he had heard something unexpected. “I looks like it’s time we head back to the others. Jhonate says that both Qurl and Jerry are getting more and more agitated about the wait.”

“She says?” Willum replied. “You can hear her?”

Edge raised his hand, showing Willum the thin Jharro ring on his forefinger. His look was apologetic. “Evidently, she’s been listening in the whole time.”

“Sorry, Willy,” Theodore said. “I should have seen it sooner. He has so many bonds coming out of him that I didn’t notice it before.”

The named warrior smiled at the consternation on Willum’s face. He placed a hand on Willum’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’m on your side in this. And so is Jhonate. We just need to make sure that everyone is on the same page.”

Sir Edge turned to rejoin the others, but Willum reached out to stop him. “Wait, there’s one more thing.”

“Not a good idea, Willy,” the imp warned.

“Yes?” said Edge.

“I want to tell you, but-.” Willum grimaced. “You need to make sure that Jhonate doesn’t hear.”

Edge frowned. “Didn’t I just finish telling you that keeping secrets was a bad idea?”

“I know,” Willum said, raising his hands. “And maybe it’s not all that important. Just wait until I’ve told you. After that, you can decide whether to tell her or not. You understand their culture better than I do.”

“You realize she just heard you say that,” said Sir Edge wryly. He sighed. “Alright, I’ve cut her off. Now tell me quick before she storms over here and hits me.”

“It’s about Tarah’s staff,” Willum said. “It’s made of Jharro wood.”

“It’s what?” Edge said, his eyes concerned. “How did she get it?”

“It’s really old Jharro wood. Dead wood, Theodore calls it,” Willum explained. “He says that it’s imp handiwork, carved by his people for the specific purpose of binding a soul. Tarah didn’t know about that until recently. Her grandfather gave her the staff when she was twelve.”

Edge winced. “Dead wood. That means that it was either taken from the hand of a dead Roo-Tan warrior or from a Jharro tree that was destroyed during one of the ancient attacks on the grove.”

“See why I didn’t say anything at first? We know that the Roo-Tan are very sensitive when it comes to the use of Jharro wood. Scholar Tobias warned us that it might be a problem. This is the main reason Tarah didn’t come with us into town to meet with the protector. We didn’t know how he would react.”

“Yeah, I don’t know either.” Edge’s brow furrowed in thought. “Can Tarah’s magic disguise her staff?”

“We think so, but-.”

“She’s coming this way, Willy,” said the imp.

“Jhonate’s coming,” Willum warned just before the woman appeared.

Jhonate rounded a nearby tree, knocking a branch aside with her staff. Her piercing green eyes were tightened by the scowl she wore on her face.

She advanced on Sir Edge, her knuckles white on the haft of her staff. “What are you hiding, Justan?”

The named warrior was a head taller than her and probably close to twice her weight, but he took a step back, “Tarah Woodblade’s staff is made of dead Jharro wood. They’re worried how your father will react to her having it in her possession.”

She turned her gaze to Willum. “Where did she get such a thing?”

He swallowed. “It’s ancient. It was given to her as a gift when she was a child. No one even knew that it was Jharro wood until after the rogue horse was bound to it.”

“Actually I told Tarah about it before that, Willy,” the imp put in.

Not helpful, Theodore, Willum replied.

Jhonate’s scowl faded to a look of concern. “Can she use her magic to disguise this staff?”

Willum let out a nervous chuckle. “Yes. She can make it look like whatever she wants. The only issue is that the staff’s magic is less effective on some people. Scholar Tobias warned us that people trained in spirit magic may be able to see through her illusions, especially if they know what to look for.”

Sir Edge nodded in understanding, “And since the Roo-Tan are familiar with spirit magic, they might discover the truth.”

“How . . . bad would that be?” Willum asked.

“It is hard to say,” Jhonate replied. “To some among us, it would seem an affront akin to carrying around the bones of our dead ancestors.” She shrugged. “Most of us are not so traditional, but it depends on how my father sees it. The fact that the wood’s source is unknown helps her case.”

“Then what do we do?” Willum asked.

“She must use her illusion,” she replied. “And avoid drawing attention to the staff, especially if witches or listeners are nearby.”

“But we tell Xedrion the truth,” Sir Edge added firmly, his eyes fixed on Jhonate.

She frowned back at him, “I would not suggest a lie. However, subterfuge is sometimes necessary where my father is concerned.”

“And when he finds out later?” Edge said.

Her frown didn’t abate, but she relented. “Very well.”

“Then I suppose we have a plan,” Edge said. “Let’s return to the others. I’m sure they are tired of waiting.”

“Yeah. Great.” Willum followed the two warriors back to the road, still unsure about the plan. They were depending on Tarah to be reasonable in all of this. Considering how erratic she had been acting lately, there was no telling what she might do to mess things up.

Theodore had similar concerns. “Ho-ho, Willy. And what do we do when that idiotic gnome walks up to every Roo-Tan we pass?” He continued with an eerily accurate impression of the gnome’s voice, “‘Ooh, you have a wood staff just like Pretty Tarah’.”

He won’t say that, Willum replied, his thoughts uneasy.

“If you say so. Ho! You’re probably right. It will be much worse!”

When they arrived back with the others, Djeri was pacing back and forth, his gauntleted hands were clenched into fists. The moment Willum came into view, the dwarf strode to Willum and gripped his arm uncomfortably tight. The glare in his eyes pierced through the slots in his helmet.

“And what did you tell them, boy?” he said in a quiet, but intense voice.

“What they needed to know and nothing more,” Willum replied evenly. He had left out the fact that Tarah had a tendency to speak with her dead relatives, for one thing. “Don’t worry. They’re on our side in this.”

The Roo-Tan warriors closed in around the group looking to Jhonate’s brother for orders. Qurl gave Willum and Djeri a curious look as he approached Sir Edge and his sister. “So what did you learn?”

“The woman has magic that disguises her presence,” Jhonate replied.

Qurl’s eyes narrowed. “She is a wizard?”

“No,” said Sir Edge. “The magic comes from a bound weapon.”

“Oh,” the Roo-Tan warrior replied, the tension leaving his shoulders.

“We should go now, brother,” Jhonate said. “It is time we met this Woodblade woman.”

Qurl signaled and the procession continued, Djeri and Willum moving to the front of the group to lead the way to the camp. Willum wondered what Tarah was doing. Surely she had seen their approach by now. He felt a sudden stab of worry. “Uh, Djeri. What about Cletus? These guys are sticking pretty close to us. What if he thinks we’re prisoners and decides to attack?”

“I’m sure Tarah’s keeping an eye on him,” Djeri replied unconvincingly. A few seconds later he took off his helmet. “Turds. Just . . . wear a big smile and look at ease. He’ll be fine.”

They traveled as far as they could by road without incident and Djeri led them into the forest. A short distance in, they came across the campsite. Two bedrolls were laid out on the ground. Neddy and the warhorse stood to the side. The fire pit still contained a few smoldering coals, but there was no sign of Tarah or the gnome.

“Is that Albert?” Sir Edge said in surprise. He strode forward and ran his hand along the warhorse’s flank, briefly touching the scars from the burns Albert had sustained during the battle with the bandham. “Hey, boy. What are you doing here? Gwyrtha, its Al-!”

The rogue horse growled and Edge froze mid-sentence. “Gwyrtha says there’s someone in the trees.”

“Hello, pretty Djeri. Hello Willum,” said a voice from overhead.

The warriors around Willum gasped and pointed upwards, some of them brandishing their weapons in surprise.

Peering down from high above them was Cletus. The gnome warrior was upside down, looking for all the world like he was standing nonchalantly on the underside of the branch above him. If not for his floppy ears hanging down towards them, it would have been quite disorienting, but Willum knew that it was just another of the gnome warrior’s uncanny weapon tricks. He could see the thin silvery chain that was gripped in the gnome’s hand anchoring him to the branch above.

“Uh, hey, Cletus,” said Djeri, leaning back to peer up at him. He pointed to Edge and Jhonate. “This is Sir Edge and his betrothed, the daughter of Xedrion. They are the people Willum and I went to get. Remember?”

Cletus blinked and looked at the two of them, who were staring back up at him, mouths agape. “Hello pretty lady. Hello, strong man. Why did you bring so many fighters? Do you want to fight?”

“No one wants to fight, Cletus,” Willum said hastily. “These warriors are our Roo-Tan friends. We brought them here to meet Tarah. Why don’t you come down from there and take us to her?”

“Oh!”

The gnome gave his chain a jerk and it came loose from the branch above. He did a somersault as he fell towards them and landed in a crouch before rising to his deceptively gawky seven-foot height. He wore a thin cotton shirt under a runed leather vest and his baggy pants had multiple pockets. It was gnome warrior gear that Tobias had found for him before they left for Malaroo and Cletus was quite proud of it.

“Tarah went to take a bath in the river. You shouldn’t go there,” Cletus said. His cheeks reddened slightly and he whispered. “She took all her clothes off.”

“I . . . suppose we will wait here then,” said Jhonate.

Cletus bent in closer to sniff at her Jharro weapon. “Hey, pretty lady, you have a staff like Tarah’s.” He cocked his head. “Only yours doesn’t have a horse living in it.”

“See, Willy?” snickered the imp. “I told you.”

“What’s this, Djeri?” called a voice suddenly from the trees beyond them. Willum recognized it as Tarah’s voice but it was amplified and intensified, giving it an otherworldly tone that sent a chill down his spine. “Is Tarah Woodblade so feared that they send an army to greet me?”

Tarah stepped out of the trees and into the small campsite and everyone took an instinctual step back. She was still Tarah, but a more imposing version. She stood several inches taller and broader than usual and the runes on the leather armor that Bettie had given her gave off a dull glow. She was also quite beautiful. Her skin and hair shone with an unnatural luster. Her nose was straight and her teeth flashed a brilliant white as she laughed at their reaction to her appearance. She planted her staff in front of her and it was red as blood. “Well? Are you here as allies or enemies?”

Djeri didn’t respond, his eyes wide with shock. Willum cleared his throat and said formally, “Tarah, this is Sir Edge. With him are Qurl, the Protector of the Grove’s fourth son and Jhonate, the Protector’s seventh daughter. They’re here to take us to see their father.”

The imp sputtered. “Willy . . . she’s naked.”

Willum was going to say something else, but choked on his words. No way.

“I’m serious. Ho-ho! She must have come straight from the river without changing. Look at her feet if you don’t believe me,” said the imp and Willum saw a puddle of water pooling under her boots. “I can strip the illusion away from your eyes if you would like. Do you want me to show you?”

N-no. I’m alright, Willum replied, swallowing.

Chapter Three

What are you showing them, Esmine? Tarah asked, trying to exude confidence. She had a lot of experience putting on a front, but it was ridiculously hard to ignore the fact that she was naked and dripping wet. The eyes of the strangers standing in her camp were wide, though in shock or surprise at her sudden appearance she wasn’t sure. You put armor on me, right? You said you were putting armor on me.

“Oh yeah, you’re clothed,” Grampa Rolf assured her. The old man had appeared next to the terrifying beast that had to be Sir Edge’s rogue horse.

That gave her some confidence. She noticed that Djeri was staring at her, mouth agape. Of course he saw through the illusion. For some reason, Esmine’s magic had no effect on him.

Tarah gave the dwarf a sly wink before addressing the others. She made sure to use their proper titles as Djeri had made her rehearse. “Hello, Sir Edge. Hello, daughter and son of Xedrion. I am glad you’ve come. I have a lot to tell you.”

They winced slightly at the sound of her voice and Tarah knew that Esmine was putting on a show. You’re doing more than just dressing me, Esmine.

“I remember this one,” Esmine said, using Grampa Rolf’s voice.
Esmine still used the forms of Tarah’s dead father and grandfather to communicate with her despite Tarah’s repeated pleas for her to stop. Rolf was the rogue horse’s favorite. There was something about the playful nature of Tarah’s memories of him that appealed to her nature. “It’s Gwyrtha! We used to run in the fields together.”

If Tarah had the time, she would have been fascinated by this interaction. This was one of Esmine’s peers. Gwyrtha was striking; both terrifying and beautiful at the same time. Unfortunately, Tarah had more pressing matters on her mind.

Esmine, listen. You’re doing more than just clothing me. What is it? Why does everyone look so shocked?

“Oh, they’re just trying to figure out whether or not you’re a goddess,” Rolf replied, running a hand down Gwyrtha’s flank. He leaned over and sniffed at the rogue horse, a very un-Rolf-like smile on his face.

The sight of her grandfather acting like that bothered her. Stop that, Esmine. Just talk to me. What do you mean, goddess?

“We are glad to meet you, Miss Woodblade, but- uh, what you’re doing right now isn’t going to help your case with the Protector,” said one of the strangers. It was Sir Edge. The musclebound named warrior was looking at her with disbelieving eyes. “I’m assuming that your current appearance has something to do with the rogue horse that’s bound to your staff?”

“Probably. Am I glowing or something?” Tarah asked in embarrassment. She turned irritated thoughts towards her staff. You know I don’t like it when you make me glow.

“Why not? It’s effective,” replied Grampa Rolf. He placed a foot in the stirrup of Gwyrtha’s saddle. “Look at their reactions.”

“You’re more than just glowing, Tarah. You’re huge.” Willum said and from the way he kept averting his eyes, she wondered if the imp had told him she was naked.

“You’re fuzzy all over,” Cletus complained, one hand raised in front of his face. The gnome warrior could always tell when there were illusions around. He wasn’t immune to them like Djeri was, but they seemed to cause him discomfort. Especially when the illusions were surrounding Tarah. “And your voice hurts my ears.”

“Don’t worry. I just added a few enhancements. You know, perfected parts of you that were already there,” Rolf said, waving a hand absently. He swung his leg up and sat on Gwyrtha’s saddle. The rogue horse didn’t react, of course. Only Tarah knew that the apparition was there. “It makes you more impressive. Tarah Woodblade needs to inspire awe.”

What it does is make me stand out too much! You always go too far. She forced a smile at Sir Edge and the others. “I’m sorry. Esmine has a tendency to show off at times. I’ll get her to stop.” Stop ‘enhancing’ me, Esmine. Keep the illusion that I’m wearing my armor, but stop the rest of it.

“Even the nose?” said Grampa Rolf, raising one bushy eyebrow. He looked awkward sitting on the rogue horse’s back, like someone who had never ridden a horse before. “You hate when people comment on your nose.”

Even the nose, she replied. They’ll find out about it sooner or later. If they think Tarah Woodblade is ashamed of her own face, it’ll make me look weak.

“If that’s what you want,” Rolf said with a grumpy sigh and waved his arm theatrically.

Tarah didn’t feel any different, but she knew that Esmine had done as she asked because the Roo-Tan warriors relaxed, some of them looking positively relieved. One more thing, Esmine. If you wouldn’t mind, can you let me see what they’re seeing?

Grampa Rolf shrugged and Tarah sighed as she saw the leather armor Bettie had given her appear on her body. She couldn’t feel the armor on her skin, but it helped her not feel so naked.

“Is that better?” Tarah asked the assembled warriors.

“You look and sound like yourself again, Tarah,” Willum said.

“You still look fuzzy,” Cletus grumbled.

“Well, there you go,” said Djeri loudly, his voice covering up Cletus’ grumblings. “You got a glimpse at what Tarah’s magic can do. Can you see why we didn’t want to go around advertising that fact?”

“I suppose so, dwarf,” Qurl replied, still looking at Tarah with wary eyes.

“It was a quaint demonstration,” said Jhonate. Tarah noted that the female warrior was the only one of the Roo-Tan that didn’t look suitably impressed. “But your staff’s abilities have nothing to do with the reason we are here. Willum says that you have information regarding this army of demons that have invaded our country.”

Tarah frowned slightly and glanced over to Willum. Just how much had he told them already? “This is true. The army is close to thirteen hundred strong at this point.

“Your friends told my father that there were fifteen hundred,” said Qurl, sending a glare towards Djeri.

“That was the count when we crossed the river into Malaroo,” Tarah replied. She allowed herself a self-satisfied smile. “They were at their strongest at that point, but the journey across Malaroo was hard for ‘em. They had to stick pretty close to the swamps to avoid being seen. They lost a lot of scouts to drowning and troll attacks. You know.” She wiggled her fingers. “Illusions.”

“It was mainly kobalds that were killed,” Djeri added. “The imps are harder to trick.”

Tarah nodded. “At my last count, the army consists of four hundred and eighty imps, seven hundred kobalds, give or take. And then there’s the smattering of humans and gnome warriors that serve Aloysius.”

“Thirteen hundred,” Sir Edge said, his expression thoughtful.

“That is not so many,” Qurl said confidently. “A minor threat.”

Tarah snorted in disbelief. “A minor threat? Mud and leaves! It’s a demon blasted army!”

“We are not discounting the danger this army poses,” Jhonate assured Tarah, then gave her brother a pointed look. “The Roo-Tan do not allow foreign forces in our lands.”

“I was not suggesting we ignore the army, sister,” Qurl said, offended by the reaction to his statement. “I was simply noting that their numbers are insignificant compared to ours. Father could dispatch an army ten times that size from Roo-Tan’lan alone.”

Several of the other Roo-Tan warriors nodded their heads in agreement and Tarah felt a sinking sensation in her stomach. This was the same attitude she had seen in Alberri all over again. They weren’t going to take her seriously.

“You’re losing ‘em,” said Grampa Rolf, still sitting awkwardly in the rogue horse’s saddle. “Can’t allow that. Tarah Woodblade commands attention. Maybe if I added some lightning shooting from your eyes?”

No, she replied, but maybe Esmine was right. Maybe being Tarah Woodblade the tracker wasn’t enough. Maybe she needed to be seen as a god. She shook her head and opened her mouth to yell at them, but Willum spoke up first.

“I think you are missing the point!” he said. “These aren’t normal soldiers. You can’t fight them one-for-one.”

“Perhaps dry foot warriors cannot, but we are Roo-Tan!” said one proud warrior. “We have battled the demon merpeople many times.”

“You haven’t faced these kind of demons,” Willum drew his axe and the runes along its surface glowed as if it had a molten core. The warriors took a wary step back, gripping their weapons. “Do you know what it means to fight an imp? I can tell you because there’s one bound to this axe.”

Willum raised the axe over his head. The runes brightened and smokeless flames burst from them, licking their way up the wickedly curved blade. At the same time, a gust of wind came through the trees and swirled around him, causing the flames to rise and twist into the air. A burst of heat emanated from the axe, causing the warriors to take another step back.

“More illusions?” Qurl asked.

“Not this time,” said Sir Edge. He was the only one of them that didn’t seem disturbed by the display. “He really does have an imp in his axe.”

“If you’ve fought merpeople you should know that every demon can use elemental magic!” Willum pronounced. “It’s part of their very makeup. Imps are born with the ability to use fire and air. Kobalds are born with the ability to use earth and water. They grow up learning how to wield magic in battle the same way you learn to use your Jharro weapons.” He jabbed the weapon into the air one more time for emphasis and then the flames died down. He slid the axe back into the half-sheath that hung at his hip. “Do you understand what we’re telling you? Facing these demons is like facing an army of wizards, but even more dangerous because they all know how to fight.”

Qurl cleared his throat and raised a hand to silence the boisterous warrior, “We can see your point.”

Tarah was impressed. Willum wasn’t usually so commanding a presence. He usually seemed content to sit back and let others lead.

“Alright, he’s got their attention,” said Grampa Rolf, nodding his old head in approval. “Now it’s up to Tarah Woodblade to close the deal.”

“I don’t think you do understand, son of Xedrion,” Tarah said, turning the eyes of the assembled warriors back to her. “Because it’s worse than that. The reason it’s worse is because of who is in charge of this army. His name is Aloysius. In Alberri, he was known as a gnome scholar, but he’s a warrior too. And he’s as brilliant a tactician as any in the known lands.”

“He’s something that hasn’t been seen in centuries,” Djeri added, pausing for emphasis. “A gnome warlord.”

If he had expected that announcement to impress the warriors, he was disappointed. The Roo-Tan people, like most of the world, thought of gnomes as a foolish race. Gnome scholars were highly intelligent, but unable to take care of themselves. And their warriors, though tremendously skilled, were too stupid to be a threat.

The only person to react with interest to the words gnome warlord was Sir Edge. “You’re leaving something out,” the named warrior said.

Willum, who had been hoping for support from his friend, frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Willum, you told me that she’s been using her magic on this gnome warlord’s tracks,” Edge said. “To know what he’s been thinking.”

“I have,” said Tarah.

“Then what is his plan, Miss Woodblade?” Edge’s gaze was focused on Tarah, his eyes pensive. It was the same her father used to give her when he was about to lecture her. She didn’t like seeing that look in the eyes of someone she didn’t know. “Why did he drag those demons all the way here?”

“Hmm,” said Grampa Rolf. The old man had disappeared from Gwyrtha’s saddle and now stood by the named warrior, peering at him closely. “He’s a keen one, this bonding wizard. Be careful how much you tell him.”

Rolf was right. The truth was complicated. Tarah decided to stick to her planned statement. It wasn’t a lie, after all, and it was likely the best way to get the attention of the Roo-Tan. She kept her voice even, “He wants to conquer the Jharro Grove.”

This got a snarl out of the Roo-Tan, but Edge merely cocked his head. “There has to be more to it than that. Qurl wasn’t wrong with what he said earlier. An army this small, whether they’re made up of demons or not, has no hope of being able to get past the Roo-Tan. If this gnome is as great a tactician as you say, then he’s well aware of that.”

“You’re right about that. He’s not planning on attacking the grove with this army alone,” Tarah said. “It’s not completely clear. I mean, there’s a lot of jumbled information in the tracks, but he’s planning on meeting up with a larger army later.”

“The Roo-Dan and the merpeople,” Jhonate said, her eyes growing wide in understanding. “They are bringing in a general to lead them.”

The Roo-Tan warriors mumbled, their expressions concerned, and Qurl said, “Is that what they’ve been waiting for?”

“It makes sense,” said Sir Edge, his gaze contemplative. “They’ve been gathering for months, amassing their strength, then nothing. The merpeople representative that Xedrion has been talking to could just be a distraction while they wait for this Aloysius to arrive.”

“We must tell my father right away,” Jhonate said. She focused on Tarah. “You must come with us. He will wish to speak with you.”

“And there you go,” said Grampa Rolf. He was standing in Gwyrtha’s saddle now, doing an awful parody of Cletus’ trick riding. “See? I told you they’d listen if you gave ‘em enough mystery.”

Tarah smiled. He was right. It was coming together. The Protector of the Grove would have to help her. After all the time she’d wasted following Aloysius around, she would finally have the resources to stop him.

“I have one more question before we leave, Miss Woodblade,” said Sir Edge.

She was feeling so good that she rattled off one of her old sayings in response. “That ain’t my name. Tarah Woodblade never misses.”

“Tarah, then,” he replied, a grin curling the corner of his mouth. “In your examination of these tracks, did you ever find any mention of the Stranger?”

Tarah blinked at him. How did he know about that? She hadn’t told anyone. Only the tracks of the demon leadership had mentioned anything about it and their thoughts hadn’t made sense. “Well . . . I have picked up a few thoughts here and there. I can’t say as I understand them.”

“It’s best we stay out of that part of it,” Grampa Rolf counseled. He raised a finger and said sagely, “The Stranger’s business is none of our business.”

Why? Tarah asked, frowning at her grandfather’s apparition. It wasn’t the first time Rolf had said that. He used to say that when she was a child. It had never made sense to her. She wondered why Esmine had chosen that memory to regurgitate.

“What did these thoughts say?” Sir Edge pressed.

“There was mainly just a general excitement,” Tarah replied. “Aloysius had promised them control of the Stranger.”

“Shh! Don’t talk about the Stranger, Pretty Tarah,” Cletus said. The gnome warrior had been surprisingly quiet during the conversation, content to polish the various implements that he could attach to the ends of his chain. Now he stood, his tall frame hunched over as he wrung his hands with fear. “He will come to get us! He’ll take away our baby parts!”

“Nonsense, Cletus. The Stranger’s just a myth. He isn’t going to do anything to you,” Djeri said reassuringly, patting the gnome’s forearm. He looked at the rest of them. “Aloysius must be using the demons’ belief in the Stranger to get them to cooperate with him. Clever. I never would have thought of that.” He chuckled, an idea suddenly occurring to him. “Hey, maybe we can use that to our advantage. Once the demons learn he was lying, they’ll turn on him.”

Willum shook his head. “Sorry, Djeri. Theodore says the Stranger does exist. He’s just been in hiding.”

“I can confirm that,” Sir Edge added. “He’s most definitely not a myth. I met him yesterday. The Prophet took me to see him.”

“Just a minute-,” Tarah started.

“No way,” Djeri said to Sir Edge, his voice incredulous. “You met the Stranger? Here. In Malaroo.”

“I did,” Edge replied. “Not half a day’s ride from where we stand.”

“Did he have red eyes and big sharp teeth?” Cletus asked, then gasped, his face concerned. “Did he cut off your wee wee?”

“He most definitely did not!” Jhonate said. Qurl raised an eyebrow at her and her cheeks reddened. “I am certain he would have mentioned that sort of injury.”

“No, he didn’t,” Edge assured the gnome. “That part is a myth. As for how he looked, he was arrogant and a bit of a grump, but he looked human.”

“Oh! Good,” said the gnome warrior. There was still a hint of fear in his eyes. “But he’s not coming here?”

“No,” said Sir Edge. “It sounds to me like he has quite a bit of trouble on his hands elsewhere.”

“Okay, stop for a second!” Tarah said. “Someone tell me who the hell this Stranger is.”

None of our business, repeated Grampa Rolf’s voice. He had disappeared from Gwyrtha’s saddle and now spoke in her mind only. Tarah didn’t know if his voice was coming from Esmine or her own twisted thoughts.

“I thought he was a crone’s tale,” Djeri replied. “Something dwarf mothers told their children to keep them in line.”

“Theodore says that he is one of the prophets, like John or the Dark Prophet,” said Willum. The young man looked excited, like he had just learned the answer to a question he’d had for a long time.

“If he’s a prophet, then how come I’ve never heard of him?” Tarah asked. Though it was true she had been raised in the woods by her papa and grampa, she was well read. Tarah loved books and had purchased and read every book she could find, from adventure stories to histories. She prided herself in her breadth of knowledge.

“I don’t like him being called a prophet,” Djeri said with a look of disgust. “The Stranger is nothing like John.”

“Actually,” said Sir Edge. “When I was standing in front of him, I thought he was quite a bit like John. The difference between him and the others is that while the Dark Prophet tries to conquer and the Prophet actively guides his people, the Stranger hides. He sits in the shadows, manipulating the blood magic and demon races from afar, using his magic to control their fertility.”

“He’s lazy, is what Theodore says,” Willum said. “All he cares about is the balance, making sure that no one group of people becomes too strong. The demon races hate him for it.”

“Which is why this gnome warlord’s plan is so ingenious,” Edge said. He glanced back at Tarah. “You said that he plans to control the Stranger. How does he hope to accomplish this?”

“I don’t know,” Tarah replied with a shrug. “I can only see what someone’s thinking at the moment they leave a track and a clear track is hard to find when they’re in the middle of an army. It’s double hard with Aloysius, ‘cause he’s on horseback most of the day. I’ve been tracking him for weeks and all I get are snippets of his thoughts. Most of what I’ve learned comes from the demons and they don’t know much. Mostly they fantasize about torturing the Stranger.”

The named warrior scratched his head. “I suppose this means we should go and try to rescue him.”

“I don’t wanna go there,” Cletus pleaded, his lips spread wide in a grimace.

“The gnome’s right. Rescue the Stranger?” Djeri scoffed. “We should be applauding them. Let them beat the turds out of him for all I care. Maybe he’ll learn a lesson.”

“I think you two are missing something,” said Willum. “We’re talking about one of the prophets. With that kind of power, he doesn’t need our help.”

“Yeah! Let’s don’t do it,” Cletus agreed.

“His powers have been taken away,” said Sir Edge. “The Prophet told him so. He’s vulnerable.” He sighed. “I think we should try. I was taken to the Stranger’s house for a reason. Maybe this is it.”

None of our business, said Rolf’s voice again and Tarah spoke up. “I think the point is moot by now.”

“What do you mean?” Jhonate asked.

“Whatever was going to happen happened last night,” Tarah said. “That was their plan last I heard. I could check again. All I need are some tracks.”

“So it is over. He has either been captured already or he has escaped,” said Qurl, looking relieved that he didn’t need to get involved. “We should be getting back to Roo-Tan’lan. My father will decide if something needs to be done for this Stranger.”

“Qurl is correct,” said Jhonate to Sir Edge. “But perhaps we should let the Woodblade woman check some of this army’s tracks first. I wouldn’t mind seeing them myself.”

“My name is Tarah,” Tarah said. There was something about this Jhonate that rubbed her wrong. “Everyone knows I’m a woman.”

“Alright, Jhonate. We should . . .” Sir Edge’s eyes went suddenly distant. “We need to continue this conversation later. Deathclaw is under attack by a group of trolls.”

“Where is he?” Jhonate asked in surprise.

He closed his eyes and pointed to the east. “A few miles away.”

“Trolls this far from the swamps?” Qurl asked in surprise. “How many?”

“More than a dozen,” Edge replied. “He is acting like it’s not important, but their numbers are increasing. I need to go and help him out.”

“Let us go, then,” said Jhonate.

“I’ll come with you,” Willum said. “My axe needs some energy and troll blood should do the trick.”

“Alright. Fine,” Edge replied and Willum ran over to Alfred, climbing onto the warhorse’s saddle.

Gwyrtha padded up to the named warrior and presenting her flank, eager to get going. To Tarah’s surprise, the rogue horse grew in size, swelling until she was twice her previous size. Jhonate leapt up onto her back, sitting just behind the saddle, waiting for Sir Edge to join her.

He hesitated and turned towards Tarah and Djeri. “You two should stay here and pack up your camp. We’ll be back to take you to Roo-Tan’lan. Oh, and Jerry . . .”

The named warrior bent to whisper something into the dwarf’s ear. Then he mounted his rogue horse and bolted out of the camp, Willum galloping at his heels.

Qurl frowned after them, irritated that he hadn’t been invited. He signaled to two of his men, who approached him. “You two stay here with our guests until the rest of us return.” He nodded to Tarah and waved his arm, then he and the rest of the Roo-Tan warriors ran off in the direction Sir Edge had gone.

Tarah looked at Djeri and smiled. “Well, I think that went well.”

The dwarf was wearing a scowl. He motioned to the two Roo-Tan men that had stayed behind. “Why don’t you two put that fire out? We’ll get our things together.” Then he gripped Tarah’s arm and pulled her over to where Neddy stood. The mule was watching them with his highly intelligent eyes and Tarah wondered how much of their conversation he had understood.

“You know what Edge told me before he left?” Djeri asked, his voice an intense whisper and his human-like green eyes wide. “You want to know what he just whispered in my ear?”

“That your armor was too shiny?” Suggested Grampa Rolf, appearing next to a nearby tree. Making sarcastic remarks about Djeri was another of Esmine’s favorite things to do. The rogue horse didn’t like the fact that he was immune to her magic. Tarah was also suspicious that Esmine was jealous of how close she was to the dwarf.

“What did he say?” Tarah asked.

Djeri struggled to keep his voice down. “He said, ‘Have your girlfriend get some clothes on while we’re gone’.”

“Ooh. I had a feeling he might have figured it out,” said Grampa Rolf with a chuckle. He had taken a piece of wood and a knife out of his pocket and was whittling.

“He saw me?” Tarah’s cheeks colored. She had been so involved in the conversation with the others that she had almost forgotten she was naked under the illusion. “He hid it well. I didn’t even notice him check out . . . things.”

“He couldn’t see through the illusion himself, but his rogue horse told him,” Djeri said.

“Oh,” she said. “I thought I’d gotten away with it.

“You thought you’d gotten a- . . .” The dwarf’s mouth worked as he tried to think of what to say next.

Cletus chose that moment to appear. His arms were full of Tarah’s clothes and armor. “Here’s your stuff, pretty Tarah,” said the gnome. “Put it on so you won’t be blurry anymore, okay?”

Tarah let out a sigh of relief and took the clothes from him. “Thanks, Cletus.”

She glanced over at their Roo-Tan babysitters to see if they were watching, knowing it would confuse them to see her putting clothes on over her other clothes. The two men were busily burying the fire, but were keeping an eye on what she and Djeri were doing, so she ducked behind Neddy to dress.

The dwarf followed her, finally getting his jaw under control. “Just what the hell was that all about? Turds, woman! Willum and I come bringing in new possible allies to fight against the gnome and you step out naked as a plucked hen!”

“Oh, is that how my body looked?” she said, pulling her linen undershirt over her head. “Well you’ll be lucky if I ever let you ever see it again.”

Cletus groaned and put his hands over his ears. “No arguing!”

“Don’t you try to turn this on me, Tarah,” Djeri said, ignoring the gnome. “You know I like how you look. It’s been distracting me this whole time. What I don’t like is this crazy behavior! What if even one of them was able to see through the illusion? How much credibility are you going to have if word gets out Tarah Woodblade likes to walk around greeting people cheeks to the wind?”

Tarah scowled at him. She was well aware of the situation she had been in. “I didn’t do it as a stunt, ya frog brain! I was coming back from the river when you all showed up. I had no way to get to my clothes without brushing by someone. What was I supposed to do, hide behind a tree and call out for someone to bring my stuff? Would that have been a great first impression?”

The dwarf placed a weary hand on his forehead and said calmly, “Then you should have told Esmine to create a distraction and turn you invisible so that you could sneak in and grab your armor.”

Tarah’s scowl deepened as she pulled up her pants. Oh how she wanted to come up with a good reason to throw that suggestion back in his face. Instead, she found herself saying, “I thought about just that thing, but Esmine suggested the alternate plan and I . . . went with her suggestion. Don’t look at me like that! It was a split-second decision.”

“Stop listening to her so much!” Djeri snapped. “She’s an animal, for turd’s sake. The only reason she can speak to you is because she learned how by rooting around in your brain. Her decision making is like that of a . . . ten-year-old.”

“Ten year old! I’m 850 years older than he is!” Rolf said, his jaw screwed up in anger as he stalked over to the dwarf. He lifted his completed wood carving, a depiction of Djeri, and snapped it in two. “Tarah, hit him with your staff for me.”

Stop it, Esmine. “She survived for over a thousand years on her own,” Tarah said to the dwarf. “Her instincts are good.”

“Are they now?” Djeri scoffed. “Then tell me something. What kind of coon hunt did she just send Sir Edge on?”

“I had nothing to do with that,” said Grampa Rolf, folding his arms. “That dragon creature is just out of my range.”

“Huh.” A few miles away was ‘just out of her range’? That was new information. It was kind of frightening, even. The rogue horse was still learning the full depth of her power. Tarah shook her head. “It wasn’t Esmine. There must really be trolls over there.”

Chapter Four

“Illusions!” Deathclaw seethed as he clung to the trunk of a magnolia tree, high above the troll horde below. Twenty three of the creatures were standing around the base of the tree, soundlessly reaching towards him, their toothy maws agape. The palm of his hand itched from the scar left by the pommel of his sword. Star had awakened and was eager to kill. Yet the trolls weren’t his biggest concern.

“Illusions!” he hissed again.

Deathclaw was a creature with finely tuned senses. It was something he prided himself in; something he depended on. It was those senses that made him so efficient in battle. The fact that someone had been able to fool those senses irked him to no end.

He went over the experience again in his mind. He had travelled ahead of Justan and the rest of group, intending to spy out this Woodblade woman and her companions and determine how much of a threat they were. He had seen the tracks of a horse, a heavy one, perhaps a warhorse like the academy forces liked to use and another horse, somewhat smaller, perhaps a mule.

There had been traces of a scent mingling with the horses, that of a human woman and oiled leather. Those scents could have come from any Roo-Tan woman, but since horses weren’t in common use among the people of Malaroo, it was likely he had found his quarry. But the horse tracks had soon disappeared. Deathclaw had doubled back, but could no longer find the tracks he had followed. Only the woman’s scent had continued on.

That was when Justan had told him what he was dealing with: Illusions. The woman’s staff contained the soul of a rogue horse that had the power to confound his senses. Deathclaw had not been able to abide that thought. No matter how powerful its magic was, could a rogue horse be clever enough to trick his senses? Surely that was impossible.

He had redoubled his efforts, trying to follow the trail while focusing on his senses, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Then he had found it; a discordance; his vision telling him something that his sense of smell disagreed with. Deathclaw smelled water, as if a river was nearby, but his eyes showed him an open clearing of grass. Which one of his senses was incorrect? Or were they both wrong?

Just then, a breeze had blown across his skin, carrying with it a cool note. There was a shift in the humidity that confirmed to him that water was nearby. Deathclaw crept across the clearing, heading in the direction his skin said the river would be.

Suddenly, the illusions had disappeared. Disoriented, he had found himself standing not ten feet from the banks of a narrow, slow moving river. That was the moment when Tarah Woodblade had appeared to Justan and the others at the camp. Deathclaw realized that he had gone quite off course. Justan was over two miles away.

Hissing in anger, Deathclaw had dived into his memories of the illusions, trying to sort out his senses once more, doing his best to determine how they had betrayed him and vowing not to let it happen again. He was so preoccupied that he had allowed a group of trolls to sneak up on him. Too engrossed in his thoughts to bother battling such a minor threat, he had climbed a tree.

More trolls had slinked up the riverbank to join the others. Their numbers had increased until the chemical scent of their slime began disrupting his memories. Deathclaw paused in his thoughts to hiss at them and something occurred to him. His reptilian eyes narrowed. Sneaking trolls?

He tore his mind away from its analysis of the illusions and focused on his current situation. Trolls don’t sneak. They are mindless beasts that plod about aimlessly until they sense food. Then they screech and run for their prey. The silence of this troll horde was uncharacteristic.

The palm of his sword hand itched even more and Deathclaw looked down to see that the tiny star-shaped scar was glowing a dull red. The fine scales around the scar sizzled. Star was more than eager. The sword had finally awakened. It hadn’t been this eager for use for months. Not since it had destroyed that troll behemoth on the outskirts of the Tinny Woods.

Star’s power normally changed with the time of day. Its blade caused burning wounds, its heat strongest at night when the stars were bright and weakest at mid-day. However, it always burned hot for trolls. Star loved killing trolls more than anything. Deathclaw figured it had something to do with the soul bound to the weapon, but try as he might, it wouldn’t speak to him.

We are coming, said Justan through the bond and Deathclaw got the sense that he and Gwyrtha were heading in a straight line towards him. Gwyrtha was in her larger form and was being hampered by the thick nature of the Malaroo forest. How did you get so far away from us?

There was no sense hiding the truth from Justan. The witch’s staff disrupted me, he admitted ruefully. It will not happen again.

His eyes moved back down to the glowing scar. It itched but did not hurt. He reached towards it with the forefinger of his other hand and felt the heat rising from it. He wondered if he could set a troll on fire by simply touching them with his hand. But fighting trolls with fire in such a confined space would be foolhardy.

Not yet, Star, he thought. The being inside the blade did not respond mentally, but seemed all the more eager.

Deathclaw shifted his position on the branch in order to get a better look at the trolls below. Their beady eyes were wild, their jaws opening and closing with hungry soundless rage. Deathclaw cocked his head. “Peculiar.”

The trolls froze and Deathclaw heard the labored breathing of another creature approaching. Deathclaw craned his neck but could not see it, the tree’s thick leaves in the way. Then the ranks of the trolls slowly parted to allow the newcomer into their midst.

It was unlike any troll Deathclaw had ever seen. It was half a head shorter than the others and the upper half of its torso was covered in a slimy mat of red hair. It looked up at him with trollish eyes, but it had a human nose. Then it opened its mouth and let out a hungry hiss.

The troll-thing’s mouth was a deformed gash that opened diagonally across its face as if its jaw were unhinged on one side. Its teeth were square nubs and its tongue was short and pink. The trolls around it opened up their mouths and hissed along with it.

Deathclaw resisted the urge to jump down and face the thing. He thought back to the strange creatures that Xedrion’s men had found when he and Justan had first met the Protector. They hadn’t shared the same deformities, but they had also been a mix of troll and other beasts.

He reached through the bond and sent Justan an image of what he was looking at. Justan, one of these creatures is wrong. The other trolls seem to see it as a leader.

Justan’s reply was quick. I was wondering if we would see more of those things. Switch to mage sight. See if the Rings of Stardeon are involved.

The rings had disappeared at the end of the war, cut from the hands of the dying Ewzad Vriil. All the Mage School’s searches had proved fruitless. One prevailing theory was that they had somehow been stolen by the renegade mage Arcon. He had been seen at Ewzad’s side during the war, but had also gone missing.

Deathclaw did as Justan asked, reaching inside his mind to that place between his eyes where his sight was controlled. His vision shifted and he saw the star-shaped scar on his palm flare a fiery red. The troll thing, however, merely dimmed in coloration, the inherent earth magic in the bodies of all trolls the only thing he saw different.

“Nothing,” he said aloud and through the bond. Creatures that had been changed by the Rings of Stardeon glowed with a violent mix of elemental magic. Deathclaw’s own skin rippled with the rippling strands of magic that infused his every cell.

Strange, Justan replied. Well, I suppose we should be relieved. Things would be even worse if the rings had ended up in Malaroo.

Deathclaw again felt the urge to jump down to the mutated creature. It was a strange urge. Out of curiosity, he reached inside his mind again and switched to spirit sight. His eyes widened.

A soft gray mist emanated from the thing, linking it to the trolls around it. This same gray mist reached up into the tree where Deathclaw sat. It was wrapped around him like a tentacle, grasping, but held back by the protective nature of the bond. This creature was trying to control him. Deathclaw showed Justan what he had seen.

This thing has bewitching magic, Justan replied, his thoughts shocked.

Deathclaw nodded in understanding. That is how it controls the trolls.

Hold tight. We’ll be right there, Justan promised.

Coming! Gwyrtha agreed. She picked up speed, pushing aside smaller trees, forcing Justan and Jhonate to endure the whipping of the recoiling branches as they surged ahead of Willum and the rest of the group.

They were mere minutes away, but Deathclaw looked down at the deformed thing below and didn’t feel like waiting. He reached for the bandoleer of throwing knives that crossed his chest. It was a gift from Hugh the Shadow. Deathclaw had practiced with the blades obsessively until they felt like an extension of his own body. He drew a knife and smiled enjoying the opportunity to put his newly learned skill to use.

He waited for the creature to open its misshapen mouth again, then threw the knife with a flick of his wrist. The blade flew true, piercing its stub of a tongue and continuing through the base of its jaw, protruding out diagonally from its flesh. Hot red blood poured down its neck.

The thing clutched at its mouth and throat, screeching in pain and surprise. The trolls surrounding it joined in. The noise pierced the silence of the forest and Deathclaw flinched, the sudden sound hurting his sensitive ears.

He drew another knife, but the creature backed away through the ranks of the trolls it commanded. Just before it passed out of view, it made a slashing gesture with one hand. The troll horde burst into motion.

They began clawing madly at the trunk of the magnolia tree, their wicked claws cutting deep furrows in its bark. Deathclaw let out a questioning chirp. Were they trying to tear the tree down? He wasn’t too concerned. It was a stout tree. Then two of them leapt, using the claws on their hands and feet to scramble over their brethren and begin to climb the trunk.

Deathclaw hissed. He had never seen trolls do that before. If they saw prey in a tree, they would pace around it for hours waiting for prey to come within reach, but they didn’t ever climb.

The lanky trolls came quickly. As soon as the first troll was within range Deathclaw struck at it with his tail, hoping to dislodge it. His tail barb pierced one of its beady eyes, but the troll didn’t so much as flinch from the pain. It let go of the trunk with one hand to clutch at his tail, but Deathclaw swung it out of the troll’s reach.

He looked around, but there was no other tree close enough to jump to. Deathclaw reached up over his shoulder and grasped his sword. He felt a surge of eagerness from the spirit bound to the weapon as the scar on his hand touched the matching symbol on its handle. He pulled the blade from the sheath and saw that it was as red hot as his scar.

Very well, Star. It is your turn, he thought.

The troll knew no fear. It pulled itself closer towards him, reaching with one arm, the glow of the sword’s blade gleaming in its one good eye. Deathclaw lashed out with Star. With a flash of white fire, the blade took off the troll’s grasping arm at the elbow.

He swung again, carving a molten line through the troll’s head, parting its skull as if it were made of jelly. The troll burst into flame. As it fell from its perch in the tree, its body collided with the troll beneath it. Both of them plummeted into the reaching horde beneath them.

The mass of trolls, standing in a pool of their own slime, combusted, sending a ball of fire up the trunk of the tree. Deathclaw cringed as the burst of heat singed his lower body. Chaos erupted below him. Burning trolls screeched and ran in all directions. Flames climbed the bark of the tree.

Deathclaw hissed in irritation at himself. He had fought enough trolls that he should have known how this situation was going to end. Now he was high in the tree, surrounded by flames with no easy way down. Smoke filled the air, causing his eyes to water.

What was that? Deathclaw are you okay? Justan asked.

Yes, Deathclaw replied. He coughed, grumbling to himself as he glanced at the burning ground below. This was going to hurt. He sheathed his sword, ran as far along the nearest thick branch as he could, and leapt, hoping to land outside of the blaze.

As he burst through the thick leaves of the tree, he saw that he had miscalculated his trajectory. The fire had spread along flammable troll trails, igniting the undergrowth near the river’s edge. Deathclaw was falling towards a patch of burning grass that was still slick with troll slime.

He struck the grass in a crouch, rolling to absorb the impact. His ankle gave slightly, a minor sprain, and he came to his feet. Immediately, he felt flames licking up his side. The slime had stuck to him. His bandoleer was on fire. He smacked at the flames and ran towards the river just a few short yards away.

Deathclaw threw himself into the knee-deep water at the river’s edge. The slow flowing water washed off the remnants of the slime and extinguished the fire. He stood, dripping, his bandoleer blackened, his skin badly burnt in places, and his ankle throbbing. He could already feel his body’s healing magic working to repair the damage.

Standing on the far side of the small river, staring back at him, was the troll-thing. It had escaped the blast and was healing fast. Deathclaw’s throwing knife was still stuck in its mouth, but blood no longer flowed from the wound.

While he watched, it reached into its diagonal slash of a mouth and gripped the handle of the throwing knife. It pulled out the blade with a grunt and looked at it, turning it over in its fingers. It glared at him and Deathclaw saw the troll thing’s gray magic surge towards him.

Deathclaw sneered and drew his sword again, letting the creature’s magic smash against the shield of the bond. He could feel it trying to manipulate him, but knew it wasn’t strong enough to overcome him. He came at the thing, churning his way through the water of the river, ignoring his ankle. The crossing wasn’t too tough. Unlike the harsh cold rivers in Dremaldria, the water was relatively warm and never grew deeper than his waist.

The creature didn’t move. It watched his approach, its deformed face scowling that its magic wasn’t working. It hefted the knife in its hand and when Deathclaw was close to the river, swung its arm forward, releasing the blade with a smooth throw.

The attack caught Deathclaw by surprise. He hadn’t expected the thing to throw the knife back at him and certainly not with such accuracy. Time slowed in his mind and he saw the knife’s approach at the last moment. He raised his hand to catch the blade, but not fast enough. It slipped through his fingers and sunk into the base of his throat.

Deathclaw staggered, his eyes wide as his free hand reached for the handle. How had the creature done that? Its throw had seemed as practiced as many of the academy trained assassins Deathclaw had seen.

The creature threw its spindly arms up and arched its back, its hairy chest puffed out proudly as it let loose a triumphant screech.

Deathclaw’s look of shock turned into a glower. Did this thing think it had dealt him a killing blow? He would not be so easily dispatched.

A simple touch of the handle told him how much damage had been done. His larynx had been pierced, as well as a major artery, but it would heal. He let go of the handle and left the knife in place. Removing it would cause a rush of blood loss and that could slow him down. He would wait until he had slain the thing.

At that moment, Justan and Gwyrtha burst through the trees and onto the riverbank. Gwyrtha paused for a moment as they took in the scene. Flames still roared around the base of the tree where most of the trolls had fallen. Others had ran a short distance away before collapsing, leaving smoking trails behind them. Only a handful of the creatures had survived untouched. They had moved out of reach of the fire and still stood there, swaying stupidly.

Deathclaw what happened? Justan cried out through the bond.

A battle, Deathclaw replied. And he still needed to finish it. He continued up the bank towards the creature. Star would make quick work of it. Surely this thing would burn as well as the other trolls. He lifted his sword at the ready.

The creature lowered its arms in surprise at his continued approach. It took a step back. Then its trollish eyes flared with hunger and it rushed towards him, its claws extended. Deathclaw smiled.

One more troll, Star, Deathclaw thought, but the blade did not respond.

He waited until the troll thing was close before whipping star out in a backhanded swing. The creature quickly reversed momentum, leaping back agilely, but not quick enough. The tip of the blade scored its chest, cutting a groove through its skin and . . . nothing.

The troll thing screeched and clutched at the wound, obviously in pain, and turned to run, but there were no flames. Star’s blade was cold.

Deathclaw didn’t understand. Had the cold water in the river doused the sword’s heat? Had the deaths of the other trolls satisfied its hunger? It had never been so easily satiated before.

He heard the splashing of water behind him as Justan rode across the river. Deathclaw didn’t wait, but started after the troll thing himself. It jumped into the forest ahead and wove through the trees. The creature moved quite quickly. It wasn’t as fast as Deathclaw normally was, but his body, having its own set of healing priorities, still had not repaired his sprained ankle and that slowed him down, letting the thing maintain a lead.

I’ll get it! Gwyrtha said enthusiastically as she passed him up. The rogue horse surged ahead and gained on the beast, Justan and Jhonate clinging tightly to her back. Deathclaw felt a slight surge of irritation as Gwyrtha pounced on the fleeing beast. That was supposed to be his kill.

Gwyrtha dragged the thing to the ground and pinned its arms with her powerful forelegs. Can I kill it now?

No. Wait, Justan said. He climbed down and bent over the pinned beast just as Deathclaw arrived.

It screeched and gnashed its stubby teeth at him. Deathclaw could feel it trying to compel them to let it go.

“It is assaulting me with bewitching magic,” Jhonate said. She was standing beside him, a grimace on her face, her staff held in front of her defensively.

“I know!” Justan said in excitement and for a moment he reminded Deathclaw of Wizard Locksher. “Think about what this could mean? A troll with spirit magic? How did that happen?” He pointed. “Look at how deformed its mouth is. I’ll bet it is hard for the thing to bring down prey. That’s probably why it was using the other trolls to hunt for it. Hold it tight, Gwyrtha. I’ll get the rope.”

Okay, Gwyrtha replied happily as it struggled to get away, screeching and lashing out at her ineffectively with the claws on its feet.

Justan hurried around to the side of the rogue horse and opened up one of the saddlebags. Jhonate shook her head and stepped closer to the creature. Then, in one smooth motion, she swung her staff, turning the end of it into a sword-like blade and lopping the troll thing’s head off.

“What?” Justan said, his jaw dropping as the thing’s head rolled to a stop at his feet.

Jhonate couched beside the creature, a pouch of pepper in her hand. “Odd. It is completely still. Perhaps this type of troll cannot regenerate with its head severed. That is useful information.”

“Useful? Why did you do that?” Justan demanded, gesturing with the rope in his hands. “I was going to tie it up!”

“You do not take an enemy witch prisoner,” Jhonate replied, as if repeating back a time honored lesson. “They spend their entire captivity attempting to use their magic on those around them.”

She is correct, Deathclaw agreed. I would tell her so, but I have a knife stuck in my throat.

Justan looked at him, his eyes widening as if noticing the wound for the first time. Right. Let me fix that. Justan set the rope down and reached up to grip the handle of the blade. Hold still.

The bonding wizard pulled the knife from Deathclaw’s throat and quickly entered the bond to staunch the flow of spurting blood. He kept his eyes closed as he focused on Deathclaw’s various injuries. He shook his head and said aloud. “Witch or not, you were too quick to kill it, Jhonate.”

“I acted upon my training,” Jhonate replied.

“Yes, but my bonded and I are immune to bewitching magic,” he pointed out. “We would have been fine for now. There is crucial information we could have gotten from it while it was alive, even if we didn’t take it all the way back to Roo-Tan’lan with us.”

“How?” Jhonate asked, frowning. “Could it speak to you? Could it tell you its origins? You are not a listener, Justan.”

“No, but what about Tarah Woodblade?” he asked, trying to keep his tone reasonable. Deathclaw could feel the tingle of Justan’s magic working on his sprained ankle. “She might have been able to discover something with her magic.”

“Perhaps she still can,” she replied. “Does its death cancel the effects of her ability?”

“I don’t know. Do you? The point is that you acted rashly,” he said. “This could have been an important moment.”

Jhonate sighed slightly and inclined her head in acknowledgement. “I understand your point.”

Justan nodded, his eyes still tightly shut as he started the delicate process of soothing the burns on Deathclaw’s chest. “I’m glad you understand, because there are too many unknowns around us right now. We can’t let any chance to learn what’s going on pass us-.”

“The question you need to ask yourself right now is if it will do you any good to continue to point it out?” Jhonate asked. Her tone was level, but her green eyes were blazing.

I would recommend you listen to her, Deathclaw sent, knowing that Justan could not see her. She looks angry.

Justan paused in his magic and cracked open an eye, noting the intensity of Jhonate’s gaze. “You have a good point, my love. I apologize,” he said wisely.

Jhonate gave him a curt nod. “We will have the Woodblade woman examine its tracks. Then we will take its remains back home with us.”

A series of shouts echoed from the other side of the river as Willum and the Roo-Tan warriors arrived at the scene of the battle. Deathclaw’s sensitive ears picked up Qurl commanding several of them to dispatch the remaining trolls and sending the others to put out the series of small fires along the river bank.

If Jhonate heard the sounds, she ignored them as she turned to crouch next to the mutated troll’s body again. She shook her head slowly. “Yet another thing for father to worry about.”

Chapter Five

Fist looked out at a familiar section of the mountainside. Great granite slabs of rock were punctured here and there by odd clusters of stout fir trees and junipers. A stiff wind blew across the ogre’s face, stinging his eyes with its biting chill. Fist smiled. He was nearly home.

It was becoming real to him now. In the past that thought had filled him with trepidation. He used to have dreams about returning to his former people only to find that they were ashamed of him. But this was different. This time he was returning to a people eager for him to save them. His smile fell a bit at that thought.

“Ooh! How far?” Rufus asked, his staccato voice deep and breathy. His enormous head turned to look back over his shoulder towards the ogre that sat on his back.

Fist’s new bonded was a big burly beast; a rogue horse that seemed to have very little horse in him. His front half was that of a gorilla, with black skin and fur and massive arms that he used to propel himself along the ground. His rear end was that of a mountain cat, with short brown fur and retractable claws on his feet. The only things horse-like about him were his ears and the thick mane that started at the base of his skull and continued down his back.

“It isn’t far now,” Fist assured him. He let go of Rufus’ mane with one hand and pointed to the mountainside ahead. “That is Thunder People Territory. I can see some of my old hunting trails from here.”

“I sure hope that’s true this time,” griped Maryanne. The female gnome warrior shifted her position behind Fist with a grunt. “You’ve been saying ‘it isn’t far’ for hours now. Every time we top a ridge.”

“And we keep getting closer every time,” Fist replied. “One more rise.”

“I think you’re taking the long way around. Is this just an excuse to get me to cling to you longer?” she teased.

“No . . .” He had to admit to himself that he was enjoying that part though. The truth was that the distances were playing tricks on him. This was his old homeland, but he kept forgetting how much the constant rise and fall of the terrain made the trip longer. “Are you uncomfortable back there?”

“A little,” she said, shifting her lower body again. “I don’t think Rufus’ was designed for two riders. It didn’t bother me so much in the beginning, but I’m kind of sitting on an awkward place. Part of his backbone is jabbing into my butt.”

“Ooh! Ooh!” Rufus said, twisting his upper body and turning his head as far as he could in an attempt to look at her. “You want me big-big?”

The rogue horse was already much larger than he had been when they met. Rufus had known the trick to changing his size before Fist had bonded to him. His natural height was just about the same as Fist’s, but he had grown until he was at a comfortable riding height for both Fist and Maryanne’s tall frames.

“Well, I don’t know about ‘big-big’,” the gnome replied. “But it might be helpful if you were a little longer in the riding area.”

“Uh . . . air . . . uh?” Rufus’ large eyes blinked uncertainly, not sure what she meant.

“I don’t know if he can do that, Maryanne,” Fist said. “It’s one thing to make his body bigger all over, but it’s probably harder to change just one part.”

“No!” said Rufus. He lifted his left arm from the ground and his stuck his thumb up in the air. The digit suddenly grew to twice its current size. He wiggled it at them. “See?”

“Okay,” said the ogre, raising his eyebrows in surprise. “I can show you what she wants you to do.” Fist formed an image in his mind and sent Rufus instructions through the bond.

“Ooh!” said the rogue horse. He screwed his eyes shut and concentrated. Fist felt a slight shifting behind him as Rufus’ back elongated by about an inch.

“Oh!” said Maryanne, wiggling her hips. “Much better. Now if only I could do something about this shield that keeps smacking me in the face with every bump.”

“I am sorry about that,” Fist said. The shield was attached to the leather harness on his back. “I have nowhere else to put it.”

“I know. Keeps me from snuggling too close, though,” she sighed. “Anyway, thank you, Rufus. I hope that didn’t hurt or anything.”

Rufus snorted. “Nope.”

“Let’s keep going then,” Fist said. “We really are close and I want to get there before dark.”

Rufus started down the next slope. He didn’t seek out a specific trail, but climbed agilely down the rocks, at times running on the knuckles of his hands and at times on his palms, whatever best helped him to keep secure footing.

“You know what? You having a rogue horse is cheating,” Maryanne observed, clinging tightly to Fist while Rufus descended a particularly craggy section of the slope.

“Cheating? How?” Fist asked.

“You’ve been a bonding wizard for what? A year?” she asked.

“More than two, I think,” Fist replied, thinking back to the time he had met squirrel. He still wasn’t sure at what point they had actually bonded, his magic had been so weak back then. It could have been that first moment they met. It had been the day he left the Thunder People and he had been so lost and in pain. Or maybe it was later on, the night when he had killed the giant spider and fought the trolls. He had been so sick after that he almost died, but Squirrel had been there in the morning.

That first day, replied Squirrel, stirring in his pouch where he had been sleeping. The animal sounded certain and Fist had no reason to doubt him.

“Well it doesn’t matter,” said Maryanne. “One year or two or three or whatever. Sarine has been waiting for two hundred years and the Prophet never brought her a rogue horse.”

“That’s strange,” Fist said. Sarine was Justan’s great grandmother and Maryanne’s bonding wizard. She had also been one of the Prophet’s companions during the War of the Dark Prophet. “Maybe it’s because she already has everything she needs from her bonded.”

One of the requirements for bonding was mutual need. Sarine already had extended life through her bond with Sir Kyrkon the elf, and toughness from her bond with the dwarf Bill. Fist figured that her bond with Maryanne gave her agility and mental focus. What else was there?

“Come on. Who doesn’t need a rogue horse?” Maryanne griped. “They’re the perfect bonded.”

“Me?” said Rufus. His gait took on a bit of a strut. He liked the sound of that.

“Sure,” she replied. “Look at you, climbing all around the mountain with us two on your back. All you rogue horses are great. You’re fast and strong. You’re loyal. Also you have all that energy that bonding wizards can use. Sarine is way old for a human. She can use all the energy she can get.”

“Then you’re mad that I bonded with him?” Fist asked, feeling oddly ashamed. He hadn’t asked for a rogue horse, but maybe she had a point. Had he done anything to deserve a bonded like Rufus?

You are good, Fist, Squirrel assured him.

Good! agreed Rufus, though he really didn’t understand what Fist’s confusion was about.

“Aww, I’m not mad at you, big guy,” said Maryanne, hearing the uncertainty in his voice. She tightened her grip around his waist, giving him a squeeze. “You’re sweet and you deserve everything. Really, you do. I’m just mad at the Prophet on Sarine’s behalf. She won’t be mad for herself, so sometimes I have to do it for her. I’ll tell John about it, too. Next time I see him.”

Fist felt a bit better. “Then you’ve seen a lot of rogue horses?”

“A few, though Sarine’s told me about more,” she replied. “Two of the other bonding wizards we met in Khalpany had them. One of them was part dog and one of them had a regular horse head, but he could breathe fire!”

“Really?” said Fist, thinking how useful that could be.

“Yes! And hear this. There’s a rumor that there’s one of them still out there that can fly! Can you imagine that?”

“Ooh! Yes! Sera!” Rufus said, coming near the edge of a short cliff face.

“You know it?” Maryanne said excitedly. “Hey, show Fist what it looks like so he can describe it to me.”

“Wait. Hold on,” Fist said. He had seen some movement on a trail not far below them. Stop Rufus. Back up. Quietly.

Okay, Rufus replied, taking a few steps back from the edge.

“What is it?” Maryanne asked, trying to look around him to see what he was looking at.

“Shh!” He mentally prodded Rufus to move forward just a bit so that they could peer down over the lip of the rock. The ape-like beast edged sideways just a bit and leaned so that they could see the trail below.

Dead things, Rufus sent, baring his teeth in dislike.

Squirrel exited his pouch at Fist’s waist and ran up to the top of the rogue horse’s head to get a better look. Ick, he said, wrinkling his little nose at the smell.

A long line of hunched figures shuffled down the trail. They were of various different races, but all of them were in some state of damage or decay. Fist winced at the smell. Back up.

Rufus backed away from the edge. Fist turned to look at Maryanne. She gazed back at him with annoyed eyes.

“That’s a lot of them,” she whispered. The line had stretched down the trail in both directions as far as they could see. “I kind of hoped we’d killed most of them back at the lake. What do we do? You wanna fight them?”

“I don’t know,” Fist replied, making his voice as soft as he could. He wasn’t very good at whispering. “That trail goes to the Thunder People territory, but they are heading away from it.”

Maryanne frowned. “That could be good or bad.”

Fist gave her a worried nod. This army of infested dead was either returning from defeat or success with the Thunder People. “I saw many ogres.”

She gave his shoulder a comforting squeeze. “But mostly goblinoids, I think. Let’s take a closer look.”

They slid down from Rufus’ back and slid up to the edge on their bellies to make it easier to peer down without being seen. They watched the dead things go by. It was an eerily quiet march. The creatures didn’t groan or hiss or communicate with each other in any way. Somehow they avoided tripping over each other, but they moved slowly as if they barely remembered how to walk, their eyes looking down.  Fist wondered if any trace of their former selves remained.

The procession seemed unending, but he and Maryanne did a quick count. Only perhaps one out of ten was an ogre. That might have been good news, but the sheer number of dead were overwhelming.

“I didn’t know there were so many people living up here,” Maryanne whispered.

“Most people don’t,” Fist said. “There are hundreds of ogres in different tribes all over the mountains and tens of thousands of goblinoids. At least there was before the war. Still . . . This is a lot. The evil has spread far.”

Fist frowned as he thought about how quiet their journey had been. It was possible that an ogre and gnome mounted on a giant gorilla was too intimidating a force to attack, but there should have at least been some posturing by the tribes of creatures whose territories they had crossed. Thrown rocks or angry shouts at least. He shivered, thinking of how many empty caves they had passed. It truly did seem as if the mountain had been emptied of life and fed to that black lake.

They scooted back from the edge and sat up. Maryanne scratched her head. “What do you think? There enough ogres down there for your people to be overrun?”

“It doesn’t look like it,” Fist replied.

No, Squirrel said. Ogres are strong.

“Good. So what do we do from here?” asked the gnome. “Looks like they’re in our way. Do we wait until they’ve passed by or do we fight our way around them?”

Fight! Squirrel urged. I will be Deathclaw again.

“No, Squirrel,” Fist said. He shook his head. “There is a way around the trail. We will not fight them unless we have to.”

“You sure?” Maryanne asked. “If you did another of those cloud lightning spells, you could put a nice dent in the number of bodies that evil has control of.”

“Maybe,” Fist said. “But we don’t have time to destroy the bodies. The worms in them will be dead, but they’ll just put more worms in them and use them again.”

“Oh, right. I didn’t think of that,” she said, a frown appearing on her face. “Ugh, does this mean that all the creatures we killed this morning are back up again?”

“I think so,” Fist said, finding his face echoing her frown. “Unless my lightning burned them too bad to be mobile again.”

“Here I thought we’d done some good,” she moped.

“We did.” Fist assured her. “We closed up that canyon. And we saved Rufus.”

“Ooh! Me!” Rufus agreed as quietly as his big voice allowed.

“I guess,” Maryanne said with a shrug. Then the gnome straightened her back. “And you know what? I think we put a nice scare in that evil. You gave it a taste of your lightning and I bet it didn’t like that.”

Yes! thought Squirrel.

A smile spread across Fist’s lips. “I hope you’re right.” He stood. “We should get going. The way around this trail will take us longer than I had hoped.”

Fist climbed back on to Rufus’ back and Maryanne leapt up behind him. “Say, why do we need to go the long way around? Why not have Rufus run straight across that path? We’ll just knock a bunch of those infested things over and keep going.”

“Because then the evil will know where we went,” Fist replied. “If it’s mad at us, I don’t want it following us to the camp.”

Keeping hidden wouldn’t be too easy. They were too big to blend into the background and he hoped that the larvae inside the dead things weren’t alert enough to notice their passing. Rufus backtracked a little bit and Fist had him climb down into a copse of trees before descending the slope at a different heading away from the trail.

The way was rough, requiring Rufus to climb down some steep rock shelves before heading up the other side. The rogue horse did so gleefully, huffing and humming an odd tune under his breath as he went. With his large hands and the powerful rear claws, Rufus was well suited to climbing. He was doing exactly what he was created to do and for a rogue horse, nothing could be more enjoyable.

Maryanne seemed to get a kick out the journey as well, but for Fist it wasn’t nearly as fun. They had to cling to Rufus’ back during some fairly frightening climbs. Fist was constantly reminded how heavy his armor and shield were. On one sheer section of the cliff Rufus was climbing, both the ogre and gnome were dangling; Fist with his arms around Rufus’ chest and Maryanne with her arms wrapped around Fist’s waist.

The sun was low on the horizon when they finally passed the first rock marked with the lightning symbol of the Thunder People. Fist hadn’t felt so relieved in a long time. Then he caught the smell of burning flesh. It wasn’t a pleasant smell, like a cook fire. It reminded Fist of the cleanup after the war, when they had piled up the bodies of dead goblinoids outside of the Mage School and the wizards had burned them to ash.

“You see the smoke?” Maryanne asked, pointing over his shoulder.

Fist could see it now. Puffs of black smoke coming from the other side of the ridge where the Thunder People’s camp was. “This is good, right? The dead things wouldn’t set a fire. This means the ogres won the battle.”

“That sounds right to me,” Maryanne replied, though her voice didn’t sound so sure.

“There you two are,” said a gruff voice suddenly from overhead. Fist peered up to see Lyramoor, the elf swordsman, standing on a cliff ledge about ten feet above Rufus’ head. He wore dark leather armor and the hilts of two swords hung at his hips. His heavily scarred face was frowning and he had a throwing dagger balanced in one hand. “What the hell are you riding?”

“Roo-fuss,” announced the rogue horse, enthusiastically drawing out the sound of his name.

“He’s a rogue horse, Fist bonded to him this morning,” Maryanne said, frowning back up at him. “What the hell’re you doing up on that cliff, elf? Trying to decide whether to jump?”

The elf gave her a brief smirk. Lyramoor hadn’t been the most sociable companion on their journey from the academy, but he and the gnome had hit it off. They had a similar acerbic sense of humor. But any amusement faded from his face quickly.

“I am here because the others were captured by your old tribe, friend Fist,” Lyramoor said.

“The Thunder People captured you?” Fist said.

“The others. I wasn’t about to get caught by a bunch of clumsy ogres,” Lyramoor said, correcting him. Lyramoor had spent the majority of his long life as a blood slave, passed around by dwarf smugglers for his body’s magical properties. He was fiercely loyal to the academy for rescuing him, but had vowed never to be anyone’s slave again.

“Alright tell us exactly what happened,” Maryanne said.

The elf climbed down the cliff face quickly, leaping down the last ten feet, then stood facing them with his arms folded. “The ogres were fighting off an army of dead creatures when we arrived. We aided their struggle, but when the battle ended, the ogres took the others prisoner.”

“Why would Crag do that?” Fist wondered. His father knew that their help was the only way that his people could be saved.

“It wasn’t Crag that did it,” the elf replied. “Someone else is in charge of the tribe now and he doesn’t seem too keen on letting your father have his job back.”

Fist scowled and Maryanne placed a hand on his shoulder. “Sounds like you need to go sort them out, big guy.”

“You’d better,” Lyramoor agreed. “‘Cause I was about to go in and rescue Qenzic myself and I was gonna kill as many ogres as I had to along the way.”

“That shouldn’t be necessary,” Fist said, his mind forming a plan. “Maryanne, you climb down. I want both of you to come, but I need you to walk behind me.”

“If you say so,” the gnome said and slid down from the rogue horse.

“We’re walking behind you as if we’re your servants?” Lyramoor growled, obviously not pleased with the idea.

“Just for now. I don’t know who’s in charge, but Crag will have told them I’m coming,” Fist explained. “I need to make a big entrance and they won’t understand how things work in our tribe. Don’t worry. They will have time enough to understand that you’re not my servants afterwards.”

“Well, the fact that you’re on that big thing should impress them,” Lyramoor admitted. “They sure were fascinated with Charz. I think the only reason they captured Qenzic and Wizard Locksher instead of killing them was because he said they were under his protection.”

Fist nodded, grateful that he had made the rock giant stay with the others instead of coming with him and Maryanne. Now he needed to make his arrival as impressive as possible. He pulled his shield from the harness on his back and unsheathed his mace. Squirrel leapt from Rufus’ head to sit on Fist’s shoulder and the rogue horse turned to face the others.

“What do you think?” Fist asked.

“That looks pretty impressive, I guess,” Maryanne said. “Just make sure you don’t fall off.”

“Yeah.” Fist was concerned about that very possibility. He wasn’t used to riding and the thought of heading down the trail with only his knees to hold him in place was daunting. “We’ll go slow. Okay, Rufus?”

“Slow,” Rufus repeated, assuring the ogre through the bond that he wouldn’t let him fall.

Fist took a deep breath and urged Rufus to move down the trail. The rogue horse set off on a slow but steady pace and Fist managed to stay on with only a few wobbles. Maryanne and Lyramoor followed behind him, sharing amused looks.

They didn’t have to travel very far before they came across the first Thunder People scouts. Rufus rounded a corner of the trail and nearly ran into two ogres carrying spears. They cried out and leapt back yelling, “Attack! Attack!”

Fist recognized one of them. He was an average sized ogre with a flattened nose that used to join him on hunting trips. “Flick! It is me. Fist!

“This is Big Fist?” said the unfamiliar ogre suspiciously, still waving his spear.

“It . . .  is!” said Flick, his face pale. “Big Fist is returned and he has metal skins and-and . . . he rides a gwatch!”

“No,” replied the other ogre. “That is not a gwatch. Gwatches has white furs.”

More ogres ran up, having heard the scouts’ shouts of “attack”. They froze in place when Fist came into view, but Flick excitedly waved them over. “It is Big Fist! He rides a black gwatch!”

The ogres were very excited by this and came forward to investigate. They gathered around Rufus, some reaching out hesitantly to touch him. Many of them murmured about the gwatch. Fist decided not to correct them.

“Gotch?” Rufus asked, confused.

Gwatch. Fist explained to Rufus through the bond. The gwatch was an ogre legend. A hairy ghost troll that lived in the highest part of the peaks. They were considered good luck. It was said that a gwatch could talk to you in your head and if you ever heard a gwatch talk to you, you would be sure to win the next time you were in battle. Many proud ogre warriors had climbed into the mountains hoping to find one of these gwatches, but few returned.

I am not gotch, Rufus protested. I am not troll.

I know. Please just put up with it for now. I will explain it to them later, Fist promised. Aloud, he announced, “I am Fist, son of Crag! Now bring me to your chief!”

They started leading him towards the camp, but soon a dozen more ogres stormed towards them. Fist had to announce himself again and Flick continued the rumor that Fist rode a gwatch. Once again, they were suitably impressed with this tale. Some of them questioned Fist’s choice of companions, but once Fist told them that Maryanne and Lyramoor were part of his tribe, they didn’t dare try and keep them from coming with him.

The process repeated and as they came closer to the camp the procession grew. The ogres were fascinated, asking about Fist’s armor and mace and even why he kept a food on his shoulder. Fist tried patiently to answer their questions at first, but he soon lost interest. The burn piles had come into view.

Ugh, said Squirrel. Stinks!

There were five of them. Huge bonfires made of wood and stacked corpses, many of them ogres. Cleanup from the battle was still going on. Ogres were beating still moving corpses with clubs, breaking the bones so that they weren’t a threat. Others dragged these twitching mangled bodies riddled with larvae to the fires and piled them on. Black smoke hovered in the air and Fist had to force himself not to gag.

I not like this, Rufus complained. The rogue horse had enjoyed battle in the past, but this wanton loss of life sickened him.

You shouldn’t, said Fist. But don’t be angry with them. They have to do this. It was a brutal, but necessary procedure in order to keep the evil from spreading.

Then he heard the screams.

A short distance away, four ogres, their arms and legs bound with leather strips, were thrown to the ground. Their skin was flushed red. Their eyes bulged and their mouths foamed as they screamed incoherently. Fist noted that each of them had nasty wounds, most of them bite marks. These ogres were infested.

While they contorted, trying to pull free of their bonds, a grim faced ogre approached them. He carried a large knotted club that was blackened with dried blood. Fist urged Rufus towards him. The rogue horse pushed his way through the crowd surrounding them as the large executioner stood over one of the raving infested. The executioner lifted his club.

“Stop!” Fist commanded.

The ogre paused with the club still held high over his head and turned his head to look at Fist, his face mildly confused. Then he saw Rufus approaching and his look turned to abject surprise.

“Stop!” Fist said again and jumped down from Rufus’ back. He put his mace away in its sheath and made his way towards the executioner.

Several of the ogres questioned him, “Where is you going?”

“I am saving these ogres,” Fist said. He approached the ogre with the club. “What are you doing?”

“These ones is turned evil,” explained the executioner, slowly lowering the club as he looked at Fists strange garb with curiosity. He had a flame-shaped brand on his chest that had a big x carved through it. A newly healed brand in the shape of a lightning bolt was next to it. This told Fist that the ogre had once been part of the Fire People tribe before joining the Thunder People. “We must kill them and smash their bones and burn them. Uh . . . is that a food on your shoulder?”

Not a food! Squirrel protested.

Fist ignored the question. “These ogres are not evil yet.”

The ogre blinked. “Yes they is. If we letted them go, they would bite us and we would turn evil.”

“He is right,” said Flick, standing by Fist. “They is not ogres anymore,”

“They can be ogres again!” Maryanne announced and the ogres, who had been overcome by the spectacle of Fist and Rufus turned to look at this strange tall, but skinny female wearing skin tight leather armor. The ogres stepped out of her way as she moved to stand next to Fist. Fist glanced around but didn’t see Lyramoor anywhere. “Fist is an ogre mage! He can help them!”

The assembled ogres looked at her with confused expressions and she elbowed Fist. “Fix ‘em.”

“I can fix them!” Fist announced, raising his shield high over his head. He reached out with his magic and sent vibrating strands of air and earth across the iron bands, sending blue arcs of electricity up and down the shield. The ogres gasped.

Now he was committed. He looked down at the four contorting ogres and hoped that he could follow through on his promise. A jolt of electricity had killed the larvae inside Rufus, but that had been a controlled burst sent through the bond. Doing the same thing without the bond to guide him would not be as precise. The jolt could just as easily kill them as the larvae.

Fist took a deep breath and knelt down next to the closest infested warrior. Fist vaguely recognized him. He was from the Rock People tribe. They had faced each other in battle several years ago.

Fist reached out and hovered his right hand over the ogre’s chest. He closed his eyes and sent magical energies into the ogre’s body, hoping to get a good idea where to strike. It was difficult to see with the patient thrashing around so much, but Fist found them. There were only five adult larvae, but they had traveled to his blood stream and laid eggs that had scattered throughout his body. The ogre’s temperature had risen and his system was inflamed as it tried to fight off the invaders.

Fist licked his lips. So the larvae laid eggs. He thought that only flies did that, but this explained how the larvae could pass themselves along through bites. The tiny eggs could collect easily in a creature’s saliva. He would have to tell Locksher about that later.

His next question was how much electricity was enough and how much was too much. He had no choice but to simply guess the right amount of voltage to apply.

Grimacing, Fist sent jolts of electricity through the ogre’s body. The infested warrior stopped screaming and started thrashing.

Fist kept it up for a few seconds, then stopped. The ogre lay still. Fist sent magic into him again. The ogre’s heart was still beating, a good sign. The larva were dead, their bodies burst. The larvae’s eggs were tiny and hard to see without the detail given by the bond, but the ones he saw had burst.

The ogre groaned, his eyes blinking open. “I not feel . . . my face.”

Fist smiled. A success! He moved to the other ogres, repeating the process. Each time he was able to kill the infestation without killing the patient though, on the last one, the ogre’s heart stopped and he had to use magic to get it beating again.

When Fist stood, the four previously doomed ogres were awake enough to complain about various aches and pains and demand that their bindings be removed.

“See!” proclaimed Maryanne loudly. “He fixed them.”

An excited rumble passed through the ogres and Fist realized that the crowd gathered around them now numbered in the hundreds.

“Who is you?” asked the executioner, his mouth drooping open in awe.

Fist rose to his full height and raised his shield again. Electricity crackled as he shouted. “I am Fist, ogre mage and chief of the Big and Little People! I am here to destroy the evil!”

Chapter Six

While Fist approached the main camp, the numbers of people surrounding him continued to grow. Curious ogres gathered around and gossip was exchanged. Stories were passed along about the return of Fist and the gwatch he rode and the four ogres he had cleansed from evil.

When the central camp of the Thunder People came into view, Fist paused for a moment to take it in. Everything looked far different than it had the night he had fled from his tribe. The Thunder People had always been a cave living tribe. They had picked this territory in large part because of the network of naturally formed caves in the area. But now many more caves had been carved into the mountainside. Carving caves was a Rock People tradition. In addition, the wide rock shelf that was the the center of the camp was covered in tents made from skins like the Fire People used and mud huts like the Water People used. Fist even saw a few wooden shacks, something he didn’t think ogres even knew how to build.

“What is it, Fist?” asked Maryanne, who had come up beside him and was gripping his arm. Her jaw was tight with anger, tired of ogres asking her why she was so skinny.

“This is . . . different than I expected.” Fist had known the tribe would be larger. Crag and the others had told him it would be. But this wasn’t even close to what he had envisioned. It looked like the ogre version of a city. “Flick, what happened to the tribe while Crag was gone?”

The flat nosed ogre, who had inserted himself into the procession as Fist’s official guide, stuck out his chest proudly. “The evil killed many tribes. But Thunder People is the strongest. We is the biggest. We is the only ones that can fight the evil. So other tribes comed to us. Their chiefs asked Chief Old Falog to let them stay with us.”

“And he let them?” Fist said in surprise.

Ogre tribes were very territorial and untrusting of each other. Allowing another tribe to stay within yours was unthinkable. Especially the Rock People and Water People. They had been the Thunder People’s biggest enemies and were always trying to steal their food and women. If Old Falog had given up those old enmities and struck up a truce with a group of like-minded chieftains in order to fight this evil, then Fist was impressed. Falog was a far better chief than Fist had ever thought he would be.

“No!” Flick said with a snort. “He telled them that they must be Thunder People or leave.”

Fist nodded. That sounded more like Falog.

“Those chieftains must have been pretty desperate to dissolve their tribe and join their enemies,” Maryanne said.

“They fighted him for chief,” Flick continued.

“I see,” Fist said. Now he understood why Crag was having such a hard time getting his title back. Old Falog was crafty, but he had never been that skillful of a fighter, even when he was young. “Then who is the new chieftain?”

Flick’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “There is no new chief. Chief Old Falog killed all those chiefs and took their womens. Now there is just the Thunder People.” He raised his arm in the air. “We is the best!”

Ogres in the crowd all around them raised their arms and shouted, “Thunder People!”

Fist saw that most of them had lightning-shaped brands on their arms that were newly healed or healing. He leaned over to Maryanne and said softly, “So somehow Old Falog has conquered all the other tribes in the area and makes all the new people brand themselves to prove they are part of the tribe.”

“That’s good for us, right?” Maryanne said. “More ogres to fight the evil?”

Fist frowned. He wasn’t so sure. He looked back to Flick and raised his voice. “Where is Old Falog now?”

Flick shrugged, but one of the other ogres in the crowd shouted, “In the big cave!”

“Then that is where we’re going,” Fist said.

The big cave had once been home to a tribe of two hundred goblins and the giant rock spider that they worshipped as a god. The Thunder People had slayed both threats to take ownership of the cave and solidify their territory. The rock inside the cave was filled with crystalline specks that sparkled in the light and it was wide and open, allowing the entire tribe to fit inside and stand without hitting their heads. It had become a sacred place to the ogres.

Fist walked into the cave to find that it had changed as much as the rest of the camp. Fire People torches were mounted in various places around the cave, illuminating the area with sparkling brilliance. Strange carvings and symbols had been scratched onto the outer walls of the cave, obscuring the many goblin cave drawings that the Thunder People had left there for years.

In front of one such grouping of symbols sat ten ogre females, all of them branded with the lightning symbol and each of them wearing circlets of goblin teeth in their hair. This didn’t make sense to Fist until his eyes rested on Old Falog himself. Then he understood. Falog had claimed the cave as his throne room and he had chosen these women as his personal harem.

The old ogre was sitting on a glittering stone chair that some ex-members of the Stone People tribe had carved out of one of the cave’s large stalagmites. A crown of orc teeth rested on his brow and his wiry gray hair was wet from the constant drips of the stalactite up above him. Falog’s body was concealed by a cloak of scarlet fur made from the pelt of the rare red bear. His wrinkled face was twisted into a scowl as he watched Crag pace back and forth in front of him.

“No! I telled the Thunder People to listen to you when I was gone, but I am back!” Crag was saying. “I am still chief.”

“You promised a ogre mage to kill the evil, but you did not bring it!” Falog said. “I maked this tribe bigger when you was gone. I maked this tribe stronger!” He leaned back and his lips stretched back in a grin of satisfaction. A drip of water splattered on the top of his nose. “Old Falog is chief now.”

There was a surprising murmur of agreement from the other ogres inside the cave. All of them bore identical brands to Falog’s females and none of them were familiar to Fist. The wily ogre had surrounded himself with his supporters.

“I telled you, Fist is coming,” Crag insisted. “And you changed this tribe too much!”

“I am the chief,” Falog replied, leaning forward. “I can change it.”

“You’ve been making these same arguments nonstop for over an hour,” grumbled Charz’s loud and gravelly voice. “It’s boring the rest of us.”

The ten-foot-tall rock giant was standing not far behind Crag, his arms folded. The wicked prongs of his trident thrust into the ground before him and the crystal pendant that hung from his neck gleamed in the torchlight. Standing next to him were Burl, Rub, and Drog, three of the ogres that had accompanied Crag on his mission to retrieve Fist.

“Shut up, giant!” snapped Old Falog. “You is not a ogre. You cannot speak in this holy cave!”

“Try and stop me,” Charz growled back. “I ain’t in your tribe.”

“No! He’s in mine,” Fist announced. He approached the two would-be chieftains, Rufus and Maryanne following close behind him. The large crowd of ogres that had accompanied them through the camp streamed into the cave behind them, excited to see what would happen.

Crag spun around, his expression gleeful. “Fist! You is here!”

“I am,” he replied, walking up to the throne. “What did you do with the humans, Old Falog?”

For a moment there was fear in the wrinkled ogre’s eyes, but it was quickly banished. He looked Fist up and down. He must have already heard about Fist’s armor and weapons from the other ogres that had travelled with Crag, because he didn’t seem at all surprised by them.

“You, a rogue ogre, brings little peoples to my tribe?” Then he caught a glimpse of Rufus. Falog stood and stuck his right arm out from under his cloak, pointing one crooked finger. “And you bring monsters to my tribe? In this holy place?”

“I am an ogre mage and I am chief of the Big and Little People Tribe,” Fist corrected him. “Those little peoples are members of my tribe, and this is not a monster.”

“What is he?” asked Crag, his eyes wide with awe.

“Yeah. What the hell?” asked Charz, looking dumbfounded.

“This is Rufus,” said Fist. “He is a rogue horse.”

“Oh,” said Charz, relaxing. “I guess that ain’t such a surprise. Alfred’s gonna be pissed though, you getting a rogue horse before him.”

“I see!” said Crag, a wide grin splitting his proud face. He approached Rufus and patted one of his hairy arms. “This is a good road horse for my ogre mage son!”

“I has saw many horses,” replied Fist’s half-brother Burl, his look unsettled. He had been in Ewzad Vriil’s army during the war and faced off against the smaller races many times. “That is no horse.”

“It’s a gwatch,” shouted Flint, who was standing in the crowd.

“I thought gwatches has white hair,” mumbled someone else.

Old Falog’s jaw dropped. “You captured a gwatch?”

“Not gotch!” Rufus said. The ogres surrounding him gasped and backed away. They hadn’t expected this beast to talk.

“He is not a gwatch. He’s a rogue horse,” Fist repeated.

“I will call him . . . Big Head,” Crag announced.

“N-no,” Rufus said, his large eyes upset.

“His name is Rufus,” Fist corrected.

“Roo-fuss,” the rogue horse agreed in his deep and breathy voice. He spread his lips in a wide smile that was meant to be pleasing, but was instead terribly intimidating. He had large front teeth that looked like dinner plates shoved into pink gums and tremendous fangs that jutted from his upper and lower jaw. The crowd ooed.

“Good! Scary!” said Crag, laughing. He patted Rufus’ head, giddy with the ferocious nature of Fist’s new bonded. “Roofuss Big Head. A big name for Fist’s big horse!”

Rufus’ emotions were turning to anger. Maryanne saw this and patted the rogue horse’s thick shoulders. “It’s okay. Shh. Calm down.”

Squirrel, who was still standing on Rufus’ head chattered angrily and shook his fist at the ogres, upset that none of them had mentioned him yet.

Fist decided it was best to get the conversation back on track. “Old Falog, you did not answer me. Where are the human members of my tribe?”

“They is in the Jail Cave,” the ogre said flippantly. “Until we decide whether to eat them.”

“He will not eat them,” Crag promised, seeing the rage building on Fist’s face.

“You will release them now,” Fist said.

“I am chief. I will do what I want.” Falog added. “I could put your giant in there too if I wanted.”

“Yeah right!” Charz barked out a short laugh. “I’d be there now if he thought he could make me.”

“Why did you bringed little peoples here?” Old Falog prodded, ignoring the giant’s outburst.

“I am here to destroy the evil. The humans are here to help!” Fist said. “One of them is a powerful wizard.”

Old Falog scowled again, but he was a forward thinking ogre, something his actions with the other tribes had shown. He had already seen the human wizard use magic against the dead creatures in the recent fight and did not doubt his usefulness. Besides, he thought it best not to anger Fist further.

“I will let the little peoples from your tribe go, ogre mage,” the old ogre said. He leaned back in his chair. “Take them. Then go away. Kill the evil as you go.”

Fist narrowed his eyes. Oh how he wished he could do just that. It would be so nice to go back to the Mage School and forget these people or better yet, go and join Justan. Unfortunately, the force in the black lake was too powerful for his tribe to kill alone.

“I am an ogre mage,” Fist reminded him. “By rights, I can stay as long as I want. I can even take your women!” There was a hopeful gasp from Falog’s harem. Ogre mages had long been above the laws of the tribes. They were known to travel from tribe to tribe, taking women and food as they wished. It was one of the injustices Fist had wanted to put an end to when he was young. “But I will not. I ask only for my tribe to stay until the evil is destroyed.”

“No,” said Falog. “Chief Old Falog changes many of the old ways. Now I changes this one. No ogre mage is above the chief. Take your little peoples and your monsters and go away.”

Fist moved towards the usurping chief, not sure what he was going to do, but his father stepped in front of him. “No more!” growled Crag. “You do not make more changes, old ugly one. Crag is back! Crag is chief!”

“He challenges you,” said one of Falog’s supporters.

“Crag challenges the chief!” said another.

Old Falog’s smile grew. He stood and raised his voice. “Then what must I do?”

“You must fight for chief!” came a shout from the crowd.

“Is that what you want, Crag?” Old Falog asked. “I fighted and killed the chiefs of many tribes while you was gone.”

Crag laughed. “Yes!” he said, raising his arms confidently. Crag was known as one of the best fighters in all the tribes. He had fought many such battles and had won every single one. “I challenge you, Old Falog. We fight for chief!”

The assembled ogres roared in approval and several of them ran to tell others about the fight. A battle for chief was a big event and an entertaining diversion from the grave danger they were all facing.

Fist had a terrible feeling about this. Crag should win easily, but Old Falog had already beaten the chiefs of the Rock, Fire, and Water people at least. Something was wrong.

“We fight to the death!” Old Falog pronounced and Fist’s terrible feeling grew even worse.

The cheers from the tribe faded somewhat. In normal times a battle to the death was even more exciting for the ogres, but they had all seen a lot of killing lately and both of these ogres were good leaders.

Crag shrugged. “If you want to die.”

“This is how you choose your leaders?” Maryanne said and Fist couldn’t tell if the way she shook her head was in disbelief or approval.

“No!” Fist declared, sending a glowing arc of electricity into the air. The crowd quieted. “As ogre mage, I decide the rules for this chief fight. The evil is too strong for ogres to kill each other. The loser does not die.”

There was a general rumble of agreement.

Old Falog glowered at him. “I will allow this. But, the loser must never fight for chief again!”

“Good!” said Crag enthusiastically and cheers erupted from the crowd again. “Where will this fight happen?”

“Here!” Old Falog replied. “Right here in this holy place. Make the circle!”

A fight in the big cave had been done before, but there was a mix of grumbles within the cheers this time. The tribe had grown far too large for everyone to fit inside and many of the ogres knew that they would not be able to see the fight, especially after they had cleared room for the tribal battle circle.

Nevertheless, the circle was formed. The ogres backed away, leaving a space large enough for a good brawl. Scuffles broke out as many of them jostled for position.

Crag postured and stretched, excited that he would soon be chief again. Burl and Drog slapped his back, offering encouragement. Old Falog didn’t even move from his chair, but sat there covered up with his cloak, a satisfied smile on his face. Fist looked around the cave, noting that Old Falog’s supporters were just as confident as he was.

“Something wrong?” Maryanne asked.

“I think so,” Fist replied. He gestured to Charz and the giant pushed his way over to them. “You’ve been here longer than us. What do you think?”

“Something ain’t right,” Charz replied. “That wrinkled old fella is crafty. He’s got something planned.”

Crag stepped into the circle and raised his arms to the cheers of the crowd. “Are you ready, Old Falog?”

The wizened ogre stood and announced, “I use the injury rule!”

“What?” said Crag. Burl and Drog looked surprised as well, but there was only anticipation from the crowd. They had seen Falog do this before. “What injury?”

Old Falog threw open his fur cloak and held out his left arm. Crag winced. The old ogre’s forearm was bent at an odd angle. At some point it had been broken and had not been set correctly. “While you was gone playing with the little peoples, my arm was broke fighting the evil.”

Uh oh, said Squirrel.

“Uh oh,” Fist echoed.

“What does it mean? What’s the injury rule?” Maryanne asked.

“It’s not used very often,” Fist said. “Ogres are tough and we heal really quickly, but if there’s ever a fight that needs to take place and one ogre is too badly hurt, he can choose another fighter to take his place.”

“But what if Crag doesn’t agree to it?” Maryanne asked.

“He has already agreed to the fight. It’s too late for him to back down,” Fist said. “Besides, he’s too proud.”

“I agree to the injury rule,” said Crag, as if on cue. “Who is your fighter?”

“Mog!” Old Falog cried theatrically.

A grunt echoed from the rear of the cave. The crowd began chanting, “Mog! Mog! Mog!”

“It should be okay,” Charz assured them. “I’ve wrestled with Crag. He’s good.”

In the shadows at the back of the cave there was an alcove where the giant spider that once ruled this territory used to sleep. The ogres didn’t use it often, but unfolding from this alcove was a large figure. As the chants built, it slowly made its way into the light.

Fist swallowed. The thing was enormous. “What is that?”

Mog was a giant of some kind, at least eleven feet tall. He had long brown hair and a squat bulge of a nose. His skin was a bluish gray and looked thick and gnarled, with strange wart-like bumps raised up all over it. He wore only a thick fur loincloth and in the center of his chest was a larger version of the lightning brand that Falog’s supporters had.

As he walked towards the tribal circle, the chanting increased. “Mog! Mog!” He looked at Crag and yawned showing a mouth full of stained yellow teeth and a warty orange tongue.

“Holy turds of the gods,” said Charz, a grin spreading across his chiseled face.

“That’s a thorn giant,” said Maryanne. “It’s kinda small, though.”

Small? said Squirrel.

“They normally live on the other side of the mountains in Khalpany,” Charz said. “Tough bastards, and huge. This one must’ve been the runt of the litter.”

“They is born in litters?” asked Burl, wide-eyed.

“It’s an expression,” Charz replied. “Anyways, I ain’t seen one in a hundred years. Never thought I would again.”

Fist swore and stepped into the crowd. He grabbed Flick by his furs and yanked him closer. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

Flick blinked. “It is Falog’s trick. We is not supposed to tell.”

Growling, Fist released the ogre and returned to his friends. “This is how Falog has been defeating the other chiefs. I should’ve known it would be something like this.”

Maryanne raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, you walked right into this one.”

“What do you think, Charz? Does Crag have a chance?” Fist asked. He had seen Crag kill giants before, but that was years ago. And he had never done it with his bare hands, and never alone.

Charz shrugged. “I wouldn’t bet gold on it. He’s good, but if this thing’s a chief killer it knows how to fight.”

Mog peered at Crag with bleary eyes. It reached up and scratched its head with the brown claws on the end of its thick fingers. Its voice was surprisingly high for a creature its size. “Is this the one you want me to kill, Chief Old Falog?”

“Was you asleep back there?” Falog asked, his voice irritated. “You was supposed to be watching.”

The thorn giant shrugged. “Sorry . . . is it the one?”

“Yes!” the ogre snapped. “But do not kill this time. Just break him. This is new rules.”

“Oh,” the giant said.

Fist stepped into the circle and leaned in close to his father’s ear. “This is a bad idea. You should refuse to fight it.”

“I can not,” Crag said and for the first time in his life, Fist saw a hint of fear in his father’s eyes. But it passed quickly. The grizzled ogre veteran rotated his head on his shoulders. “I fighted giants before.”

Fist stepped to the center of the circle and pointed at the thorn giant as he spoke to Falog, “That is not an ogre. You must choose an ogre to fight for you.”

Falog looked amused. “That is not a rule.” He sneered. “The other chiefs was not too scared to fight. Is Crag?”

Fist turned back to his father. “Crag, let me take your place.”

Crag raised his eyebrows. “Does Fist want to be chief of the Thunder People now?”

“No,” Fist replied. “But if Falog is using a fighter, so can you. Tell Falog that you want to pick someone else.”

“A different ogre fight for Crag? Am I broken like Falog now?” Crag snorted and shook his head. “No. Also, you are a ogre mage. You can not fight for me.”

Fist gritted his teeth. Technically Crag was right. Ogre mages were not allowed to fight for control of a tribe.

Fist! Squirrel climbed up Fist’s body to sit on his shoulder. The little creature pointed at Old Falog and chattered as he shared a brilliant idea through the bond.

Fist suppressed a smile as he walked back to the center of the circle. “Old Falog, you want to use the injury rule, but I do not think you are injured.”

The old ogre frowned and stuck his left arm out again. “It is bad. You can see it!”

Fist approached him and Old Falog jerked his bent arm back under his cloak, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. “I think you are trying to trick us,” Fist pressed. “Let me see it closer.”

Falog hesitantly stuck his arm out again. Fist reached out and grasped the ogre’s forearm, then quickly began pouring his magic inside. It was evident that both bones in Falog’s forearm had been broken and twisted, setting crookedly. Fist numbed the arm and sent in threads of water and earth magic, weakening the healed sections of bone. With a quick twist, Fist re-fractured the bones, then set to work fusing them back together.

To the ogres crowded around it looked like Fist had simply grasped the old ogre’s arm and bent it back into shape. Old Falog yelped in alarm and jerked his arm from Fist’s grip, but he was too late. It was rushed work and would still need healing time on its own, but the arm was straight.

“See!” Fist pronounced. “Old Falog was tricking us! His arm is not bad.”

Old Falog pulled his arm back under his cloak. “No! You maked the trick! You used your magic!”

“The arm is not bad,” Fist said again letting a smile touch his lips. “You will need to fight Crag yourself, Old Falog.”

“No! It hurts still!” Falog said, his face panicked.

“I did not see,” shouted an ogre in the back of the crowd. “What happened?”

“The Chief’s arm was straight,” replied another voice.

“Show us!” shouted another.

“Are you scared to fight Crag?” Fist pressed. He turned to the crowd. “Should the chief of the Thunder People be scared to fight?”

“No!” some shouted. Others looked confused. Even Falog’s supporters were hesitant to back him.

In desperation, the old ogre swung his newly healed arm against his stalagmite throne. There was an awful crunch and he cried out in pain. Old Falog raised his arm in the air again. It was more hideously bent than before, his hand hanging limply. “See! It is bad! Fist lies! The rule of injury is real! Mog must fight for me like he did before!”

Poop, thought Squirrel.

Sorry, Squirrel. It was a good idea, Fist thought with a wince. If he’d had just a few more seconds to work on those bones, the old ogre wouldn’t have been able to break them. Fist felt a hand on his shoulder.

“It is good, Fist. I will fight,” Crag said, his gaze earnest with determination. “I am Chief Crag. I will win!”

Fist looked into the grizzled chief’s eyes. When Fist was small, he had looked up to his father. Even when Crag had beaten him, he was proud to be son of the chief. But Fist had never really liked him. He had felt only brief sadness when he had thought Crag dead and the revelation that he was alive had brought him no joy. Throughout the journey from the Mage School to the mountains, he had been full of bitter feelings towards the ogre. Now, for the first time in his life, Fist felt a surge of affection for Crag.

He grasped Crag’s hand and turned to the crowd, raising his father’s arm into the air. “Do you see the difference between these chiefs? Crag is strong! Crag is brave. Falog would trick you, but Crag would not. He would even fight this giant that is as big as two ogres. He would fight this giant that has killed so many other chiefs!”

“Yes!” shouted Crag. Proud to hear those words coming from his son’s mouth. “I will fight that giant and I will win! I am the real chief of the Thunder People!”

There was a roar of acceptance from the crowd. A new chant rose up from among them. “Crag! Crag! Crag!”

Old Falog glared at Fist and his father and gestured with his good arm. The thorn giant moved into the circle, stretching his powerful arms and flexing his clawed hands menacingly.

“But Crag can’t fight!” Fist shouted. He sent a surge of magic down Crag’s arm and wrenched the ogre’s wrist, snapping both bones in his forearm. “Because his arm is broken just like Falog’s!”

Fist let go of his father’s hand, letting it flop over. The crowd gasped as Crag stared at his broken appendage stupidly. It didn’t hurt because Fist had numbed it, but the grizzled ogre looked at his limp limb with deep sorrow. Crag had been slashed, stabbed and beaten; he’d had broken ribs, a broken jaw, and even fractured his skull, but he had never broken an arm or leg before. It was something he had taken pride in. Too bad he was so stubborn. He had given Fist no choice.

“Crag uses the injury rule!” Fist announced. He focused an angry gaze on Old Falog. “He will have to choose another fighter.”

“Tricks!” Old Falog shouted. “You use tricks to cheat!”

“His arm is broken,” Fist said innocently. “All can see it.”

“He cannot choose you, Fist!” Old Falog replied, his face pained as he cradled his arm. “Ogre mages cannot fight for chief!”

“It will not be me,” Fist agreed. He turned to Crag and whispered in his ear.

The veteran warrior blinked at him numbly for a moment. Then he smiled as Fist’s words sank in. “I choose Charz!”

“Huh?” The rock giant blinked, then broke out in laughter. “Ha ha! Good one, Fist.” He handed Fist his trident and rubbed his hands together as he stepped out into the circle. “I accept! I’m gonna show you ogres how a member of The Big and Little People Tribe fights!”

The level of excitement in the crowd increased. A series of new chants burst out, some of them calling for Mog, some for Crag, some just saying giant, but they were so jumbled that no particular chant gained steam. The end result was a rhythmic cacophony of voices punctuated by the stomping of feet.

Maryanne, reached out to grip Fist’s arm tightly. “Clever move, big guy.”

“Ooh! Ooh!” shouted Rufus in agreement, slapping the cave floor loudly with his hands. This will be good fight!

Fist is smart, Squirrel said in approval.

Old Falog’s eyebrows knit together in concern. He jerked his head towards Mog and the grey skinned giant bent closer to listen. “Is he a threat?”

Mog cocked his head and sized up Charz’s well-muscled ten foot frame. “Rock giants is tough, but I is tougher. I will win for you again, chief.”

Mog rose to his full height of eleven and a half feet, his back letting out a series of loud pops. The thorn giant beat his chest with his fist and let out a roar of challenge. Charz responded by flashing a grin. He raised his arm and flexed, then pointed at his bulging bicep, while nodding at the crowd.

“Rock giant,” said Mog. “What is that thing on your chest?”

Charz lowered his arm and touched the crystal pendant that hung from the iron chain he wore around his neck. “This thing? It’s a trophy! Took me a hundred years to earn it.” He held up two fingers. “Twice.”

“I want it,” Mog said with greedy eyes.

“If you can beat me, it’s yours,” Charz replied with a grin.

The thorn giant licked his lips eagerly. Charz cocked his head and thought for a moment, then reached up and pulled the iron chain up over his head. He turned and handed it to Fist. “Hold this. I don’t need him pulling on it and breaking the chain or something.”

Fist took the heavy pendant from him with a solemn nod and slid it over his head. This crystal was the source of the magic that gave Charz his ability to heal. If the giant wandered too far from it, he would weaken and perhaps even die.

For the first hundred years of the giant’s life, the crystal had been kept in a strongbox by the slavers that had forced him to fight in their arena. When Fist had first met Charz, it had been embedded in the wall of a cave by the bonding wizard who had been forced to imprison him. This was the first time Fist had seen the giant take it off since reclaiming his freedom.

“You know, this reminds me of my arena days.” Charz chuckled. “Didn’t want to be there, of course, but it wasn’t all bad. I gotta fight battles like this almost every day.” He turned back to face his opponent. “Did kinda miss the crowds.”

The two of them stood facing each other, waiting for something. Crag kicked Fist in the leg and Fist remembered that, as ogre mage, he was supposed to start it off. He raised Charz’s trident into the air and set off a crack of lightning that started the fight.

Mog came at Charz, his arms outstretched, his claws grasping. Charz lashed out with a left hook, punching the back of the thorn giant’s right hand, knocking its arm inward. Then he lurched forward and threw a stiff right punch to its abdomen.

Mog doubled over and Charz slid to the side, sending in a left punch to the back of its head. There was a loud crack as his rocky knuckles met its thick skull. The thorn giant continued his forward momentum and Charz launched a mighty kick into its backside, sending it sprawling into the crowd.

The giant barely missed striking Fist. Maryanne had to leap out of the way. Rufus, who stepped to the side to avoid it, clapped his hands and let out an excited “Ooh! Ooh!”

Several ogres in the crowd, however did not move fast enough. Mog plowed them over, the weight of his body smashing one ogre’s head first into a stalagmite, knocking him unconscious.

“Make the circle bigger!” Crag shouted. The ogres had miscalculated. They hadn’t known how big the combatants would be when they made the circle. The ogres in front scooted back and the tribal battle circle widened by a few yards, then contracted a little as the ogres in the rear pushed back, trying to see what was happening.

Mog laid there for a few seconds, unmoving, and Charz frowned. “What’s this? A thorn giant downed so easily? Come on! Get up!”

The grey-skinned giant pushed himself to his knees and stood. When he turned to face Charz, he didn’t look any worse for the wear. “I is not a thorn giant.”

“Sure you are,” said Charz, his frown fading when he saw that the fight wasn’t yet over. “Come on, Mog. Just ‘cause you’re small for your race don’t mean you ain’t a thorn-!”

Mog grabbed the leg of the unconscious ogre beneath him and roared as he swung him in a mighty throw, hurling the ogre through the air towards the rock giant. Charz raised his arms to catch the ogre, but the weight of its seven foot body struck him in the chest, knocking him off his feet.

Charz landed on his back and pushed the ogre off of him. But by the time he got to his knees, Mog was standing over him. The gray-skinned giant grabbed Charz around the waist, his brown claws puncturing Charz’s thick skin, and lifted him in the air, then upended him and slammed him head first into the ground.

“Not a thorn giant!” Mog repeated, bending over him.

Charz kicked up with both feet, catching the larger giant in the face and sending him stumbling backwards. Charz stood and, looking a bit woozy, said, “What are you then? A giant . . .” His jaw worked and he shook his head, blinking. “Damn, can’t think of anything funny.”

Mog charged him. Charz tried to spin out of the way, but he was still staggering from Mog’s previous attack. The gray-skinned giant bore him back to the ground, and pinned Charz beneath his weight. Mog shoved his forearm under Charz’s chin and leaned in close. “I is a netherhulk.”

Mog opened his mouth and stuck out his long warty orange tongue and licked up the side of Charz’s face, leaving a trail of yellowish slime behind. Charz grimaced and tried to wedge him off, but Mog shifted his weight, keeping the giant pinned while he started running his tongue across Charz’s forehead.

“Gross!” Charz cried.

“This isn’t good,” said Maryanne, her voice worried.

Suddenly, steam rose from the Charz’s face. The yellow slime bubbled and fizzed and the giant cursed in pain. Charz began punching the netherhulk repeatedly in the ribs with his free arm, but had difficulty getting enough leverage to do any real damage.

“Netherhulks usually live deep underground,” Maryanne said. “They use their acid to bore through rock and break down the bones of their prey. I didn’t know they ever came to the surface.”

Yuck, thought Squirrel.

Fist had to agree with Squirrel. “But I thought you said he was a thorn giant.”

“I’ve never seen a netherhulk before. Wasn’t even sure they were real,” she said defensively. “I guess they look a lot similar to a thorn giant.”

“Get off me, you disgusting son of a . . .” Charz cursed and continued to punch and squirm as the acidic slime bored deeper into his flesh. Mog started to lick down the other side of his face and Charz barked out a pained laugh. “Fine, you asked for this.”

Charz turned his head and bit savagely into the side of the netherhulk’s fleshy tongue. Mog yelped and tried to back off of him. Steam bubbled from Charz’s lips, but he didn’t let go. His arms were now freed. Charz twisted and sent out a savage punch into the side of Mog’s head, tearing him free.

Mog squealed and backed away while the rock giant spat out a piece of orange flesh. Charz got to his feet and glared. The yellow slime was still sizzling, leaving a raw open wound in a U shape up and over his face.

“My tongue!” Mog cried, his hands over his mouth.

“Your tongue?” Charz hacked and spit again. Yellowish slime mixed with blood hit the floor and steam poured from his mouth. “Aagh I really didn’t want to have to do that. Dirt, this hurts!”

Mog spat a yellow wad of acid on his fist and roared as he leapt forward, throwing a punch of his own. Charz was ready for it. He knocked the attack to the side and followed it up with a right and left punch to the netherhulk’s jaw. Blood and acid sprayed, some of it striking spectators. Ogres yelled, frantically trying to wipe it off.

Mog raked his claws across Charz’s chest, carving narrow grooves in his rocky skin. Charz caught Mog’s hand and wrenched his fingers back. There was a series of small popping sounds and the netherhulk squealed.

His eyes frenzied, Mog shoved the rock giant with all his might. Old Falog yelped and dove out of the way just as Charz crashed into his stalagmite throne. The rock giant recovered quickly and went back at him, but Mog reached into the crowd and ripped a heavy club from the hands of a startled ogre. Just as Charz reached him, Mog swung the club in a mighty backhand.

Charz put up his hands at the last second to block it and, Wham! The stout wooden club shattered into thousands of pieces that peppered the spectators. The blow struck Charz’s upraised arms with such force that a spiderweb of cracks blossomed across his rocky skin and he was sent sprawling back into the throne.

Charz laid there for a moment, then chuckled and eased back into the chair, blood running freely from the cracks in his arms and down the sides of the throne. His words were slurred as he said. “You wanna break rules, Mog? You wanna use weapons? Break people’s things?” He laughed. “Not nice.”

Mog snarled and came at him, intending to pin him on the chair. Charz waited to the last second, then sprung up from the seat, launching a heavy uppercut that caught the netherhulk right under his chin.

The impact knocked Mog up on his toes. Charz reached up and grabbed the hulk by the back of the head, then slammed him down, face first into the seat of the throne. He lifted Mog’s head by the hair and the netherhulk moaned back at him.

“Well this chair is a weapon,” Charz said, grinning through acid eaten lips. He smashed Mog’s face into the seat again. “And I’m breaking your face all over it!”

He slammed Mog’s face in the chair twice more, then stood back, letting the larger giant slump to the floor. He turned to face the crowd and raised his fist into the air as he shouted, “Crag! Crag! Crag!”

The ogres took up the chant and Crag laughed as he walked into the circle to join the rock giant. He reached up, grabbed Charz’s arm with his good one, and yelled. “Crag is chief again!”

Chapter Seven

The chanting continued for several minutes. While Crag and Charz shared in their glory, Fist walked over to the stalagmite throne. He found Old Falog crouched next to it, clutching his arm and staring bitterly at the unconscious netherhulk that lay on the ground.

“Can I heal your arm?” Fist asked.

The newly deposed chief stood and made to sit back down on his throne, but thought better of it. Acidic saliva and blood had pooled on the seat and sizzled as it slowly ate into the dense stone. Falog settled for pulling his red fur cloak more tightly around him and arching an eyebrow.

“Healings is the women’s job,” the ex-chief said. He started to call out to his harem, but the females had already disappeared, leaving their goblin tooth tiaras behind.

Falog’s expression drooped even further. The ogre reached up with his good arm and pulled off his orc-tooth crown. He dropped it into the puddle of acid on the seat of the throne where it immediately began to blacken and hiss.

Why fix him? Squirrel asked from his perch on Fist’s shoulder. He is bad.

He doesn’t have to be, Fist replied.

“In my tribe anyone can heal,” Fist replied. “You saw how I fixed your arm earlier.”

“It breaked too easy,” the old ogre grumped.

“You did that on purpose,” Fist reminded him. “Besides, that was because you pulled your arm away before I was finished. This time I will fix it right. Your arm will be as strong as it ever was.”

Falog blinked. “Why do you have a food on your shoulder?”

Do not heal him, Squirrel commanded.

He does not know any better. “He is not a food,” Fist said patiently. “His name is Squirrel and he is part of my tribe.”

The old ogre cocked his head in suspicion. “You do not sound like a ogre anymore. You talk like the little peoples.”

Ogres didn’t bother with terms like humans and elves and dwarves. They were all just ‘little people’. To the ogre tribes, those races were distant and rarely seen and if they were, they were almost always enemies. Fist wanted to change that.

“I learned a lot from those ‘little people’ while I was gone, Falog,” Fist said. “They taught me many things.”

“Oh, these magics you use,” Old Falog surmised, giving him a knowing nod. “You taked it from them.”

“No. The magic is mine,” Fist corrected. “I just didn’t know I had it when I left here.”

It was actually more complicated than that. The reason he hadn’t known was that his magic had been very weak when he’d left. Fist’s abilities had been strengthened because Justan’s magic was so high. It was one of the benefits of the bond.

Fist saw no reason to explain that to the ogre though. “But the humans did teach me that magic is for more than killing.” He stuck out his hand and extended threads of air from his palm, causing a soft orb of light to form. “It can bring light.” Falog’s eyes widened at the orb’s soft glow and Fist added, “And it can heal. Let me fix your arm. It does you no good to keep it broken. Not anymore.”

They were interrupted as Maryanne and Rufus joined them. The rogue horse bent down and sniffed at the netherbeast, while the gnome warrior frowned at the old ogre. “What are you doing, Fist?”

“I am trying to heal Old Falog’s arm, but he won’t let me,” Fist explained.

Falog frowned. “Why would Big Fist, the ogre mage, help Old Falog? You hate me. You maked me not the chief anymore.”

“You were never supposed to be chief,” Fist pointed out. “You were supposed to watch over the tribe until Crag returned.”

Falog spat. “I was a better chief than Crag. I maked the Thunder People strong.”

“Let his arm stay broken. He ain’t worth it,” Maryanne said.

Fist placed a calming hand on her shoulder and nodded at the ogre. “You’re right, Old Falog. You did make the tribe stronger. In some ways I think you made it better. Crag had already started letting in the rogue ogres, but you united the tribes. You brought them all in. If you hadn’t, many of these ogres that are still alive would have been taken by the evil.”

Falog was taken aback by Fist’s unexpected compliment. “Then why did you make your giant fight me?”

“You imprisoned members of our tribe!” Maryanne said.

“And you were about to kill Crag,” Fist said. “I had no choice. Now are you going to let me heal you or not?”

Hesitantly, Old Falog removed his arm from under his cloak and held it out to him. Fist gripped his wrist and numbed the ogre’s pain, then twisted his arm so that the bones were set in place. He sent threads of water and earth into the bone, sealing the broken pieces together.

The ogre sucked in a hiss as the intense tingle of the healing took place, but it was soon over. Broken bones were easier to repair than gashes or open wounds. There was much less detail work involved.

Fist let go and the old ogre clenched his fist and moved his fingers. A smile touched Falog’s lips.

“There is one thing I would ask of you, Falog,” Fist said.

The ex-chief narrowed his eyes. “What?”

“Keep being a good leader to the Thunder People,” Fist replied.

“What?” Maryanne said.

“There are many ogres new to the tribe. They have heard of Crag, but they don’t know him. They already respect you,” Fist said. “Help Crag keep the Thunder People strong. The evil will keep coming. They will need you.”

“Crag will not want my help. Not now,” Falog replied.

“I sure wouldn’t,” Maryanne agreed.

“Stop helping me,” Fist said out of the side of his mouth. To Falog, he said, “I will talk to Crag for you. Think about it. Is it so bad being the second most powerful ogre in the tribe?”

To Old Falog, who had been imagining himself at the bottom of the hierarchy for the first time in decades, it didn’t sound that bad at all.

“Ooh!” huffed Rufus, pointing at the vanquished netherbeast. What about this one?

That is a good question. “What about Mog?” Fist asked Falog. “Do you think I should heal him?”

“That doesn’t seem like a very good idea,” Maryanne said.

Old Falog eyed her, looking her up and down. “Your skinny women is right.”

The gnome warrior bared her teeth and Fist grasped her shoulder again.

“If Mog waked up now, he would be mad,” Falog said. “You would have to fight him again.”

“Where did you find him, anyway?” Fist asked.

“He comed running into the territory one day just after Crag left,” the old ogre replied. “There was another big giant like him chasing him. It had the evil in it, but it wasn’t dead yet. Just screaming. It runned over me and stomped on my arm.”

“So that’s how you broke it,” Fist said.

Falog shrugged. “I telled the others to help him kill it. Then we smashed it up. It burned for a long time.”

“And he decided to stay?” Fist asked.

“He had nowhere else to go. He was lost,” Falog explained. “Mog seed my broke arm and knowed it was his fault. So he promised to be my fighter and I letted him stay. He has helped us fight the evil many times.”

Fist looked down at the netherhulk. “When he wakes, tell him that I am offering to heal him. However, if he attacks anyone in my tribe, I will not be so kind.”

“I will not allow him to,” Falog promised.

“Good.” Fist turned away from the old ogre and noted that most of the crowd had dispersed. It had grown dark outside, but Fist saw the backs of Charz and his father as they sat in front of the cave mouth, looking out over the camp. Fist walked towards them.

“Shouldn’t we go free Qenzic and Locksher now?” Maryanne asked, keeping pace with him. “Lyramoor disappeared a while ago and he’s so paranoid about being enslaved that I’m worried he might do something rash.”

“Yes. That’s been bothering me too,” said Fist. “I need to speak to Charz and Crag first and then we’ll go.”

There were a half circle of ogres sitting on the ground facing the two of them when Fist arrived. Most of them were unfamiliar to Fist, but he remembered a few of them as Old Falog’s supporters from earlier.

Charz was speaking in a slightly slurred voice, “You know what I could uthe right now, Crag? A big old barrel of grog. It’d really help numb my nerveths.”

“You has talked about this grog many times on our journey, giant,” Crag replied. “I would like to try it some time.”

“No you wouldn’t, father,” Fist said. “Not if you reacted to it the way that I did.”

Ogres didn’t have any fermented beverage traditions. The only alcohol Fist had drank, Lenny’s firewater, had given him a severe allergic reaction. Master Coal had suggested he never touch any liquor ever again.

“Oh, you done talking with the loser, Fist?” Charz asked. The giant turned to look at him.

Fist grimaced. Maryanne gasped. Rufus let out a concerned, “Ooh! Ooh!”

Ouch, said Squirrel.

Once Fist could find the words, he said, “Charz, that looks horrible.”

The wounds that the giant had received during the fight looked much worse than they had before. What had once been a blackened line in his skin was now a deep glistening fleshy wound. It stretched from his jawline up the left side of his face, across his forehead, and down to mid-cheek. In addition, half of his lips on the right side of his face were melted away from when he had bitten into the netherhulk’s tongue. Fist had no desire to see what the inside of his mouth looked like.

“Don’t need to sthee it to know that,” Charz replied glumly. “It burnth like blazeth right now, but it’ll heal. It always doth. That athid wath jutht thome thtrong thtuff. It only thtopped thizzling a minute ago.”

“Would you like me to try and help it heal?” Fist asked. It was difficult to replace tissue that heavily damaged, but he could at least help it to scab up.

“Naw. I’ll wait. My magic always doth it right. I do want my pendant back, though,” Charz replied.

“Oh.” Fist had forgotten he was wearing it. He pulled the iron chain up over his head and handed it back to the giant. “Here.”

“Thankth,” Charz replied, slipping it over his own head and wincing as the chain dragged against the side of the wound. “You ready to go free our boys?”

“Yes, I just wanted to talk to Crag,” Fist replied, looking down at his father. “I wanted to say sorry about your arm. Can I heal it for you now?”

“The women was just going to get some medicine,” Crag said, which Fist translated as, ‘they had just gone to chew some plants to spit on it’. Most of the Thunder People believed strongly in the tradition of ogre medicine. Fortunately, Crag had already experienced Fist’s healing first hand. He lifted his arm, which had been set in a crude splint; just some straight sticks tied to the arm with strips of leather. “So yes. Fix it for me.”

Fist did so, pouring his magic into the arm and repairing it as he had done for Falog. He waited until he was finished to ask, “Crag, I have a request to make of you.”

Crag grinned as he worked his fingers and began pulling off the splint. The ogres watched with frightened amazement at how quickly Fist had fixed the injury. “Yes, Fist. Anything for my ogre mage son!”

“I want you to take Old Falog back as your advisor,” Fist said. Crag’s grin turned to a scowl and Fist added, “I know he tried to kill you, but-.”

“Fist! You do not tell the chief of the Thunder People how to run his tribe. You has your own tribe,” Crag interrupted. He shook his head and pounded the fist of his newly healed arm into the palm of his other hand experimentally. “But I was going to do that anyway. Old Falog is smart and the new Thunder Peoples trust him.”

“Oh,” Fist said, surprised at his father’s grasp of the situation.

“Look at this people, Fist,” Crag said, pointing out at the enormous camp that gleamed in the darkness. “He did good when we was gone. We is bigger. We is better. And now that you is here, we can kill the evil.”

Fist was going to respond, but Crag suddenly waved at an ogre who approached them from a nearby fireside. “Ooh, good! Hurry.”

From the crossed-out flame-shaped scar on his chest, the oncoming ogre had once been Fire People. He was holding a metal rod in one hand that looked like it may once have been a human settler’s fireplace poker. The pointed end was glowing red.

Crag eagerly held out his arm.

“Wait, Crag,” Fist said. The branding thing that had started while Crag was gone was something he had hoped to stop. “You don’t need to do that.”

The ogre chief frowned at him. “All the Thunder People does this now. So must the chief.” He looked back at the ogre with the glowing brand enthusiastically. “Make it a big one.”

Fist turned away as the ogre brought the brand near. He started walking, but he still heard the sizzle of the hot iron and Crag’s grunts of pain.

Why he do that? Rufus asked through the bond, watching the scene back over his hairy shoulder as they walked.

I don’t know, Fist replied. He hadn’t thought Crag would so easily give in to that kind of ugly trend.

“You thqueamish about a little branding, ogre?” Charz asked as they walked away from the cave. His healing magic must have kicked in because his voice was already starting to sound better.

Fist still wasn’t sure how to explain what he felt. “It just seems . . .”

“Brutal?” Charz asked in amusement.

“You are ogres,” Maryanne pointed out.

“Yes, but this is new brutality,” Fist said. “I was hoping that we could change the way things are done in the tribes for the better. This feels like a step backwards.”

“Aww,” Maryanne replied, patting his shoulder affectionately.

They travelled along the cliff face, passing the multiple smaller caves that the Thunder People had used for sleeping throughout the years. The area was crowded. Despite the last gasps of winter’s cold, ogres stood around and talked in the firelight.

Fist’s group didn’t go by unnoticed. As they walked, people congratulated Charz about his fight and pointed at Rufus, whispering about the gwatch. Fist heard his name called out several times. “Fist!” “Hey, ogre mage!” “Big Fist is back!” Fist waved in the direction of the voices, but didn’t stop, hoping that he would be able to get to his imprisoned friends without further delays.

Then they passed the women’s caves. The crowds were thicker here as the men lingered, hoping to convince an ogress to pick him for the night. The voices calling Fist’s name changed tone. “Big Fist, come here!” “I will choose you, Fist.” “I missed you, Fist!”

“What’s that about?” Maryanne teased.

“Yeah, you leave a bunch a broken hearts behind in this place, Fist?” Charz asked.

“Just keep moving,” Fist replied, wanting to avoid any embarrassing explanations.

“Wait, Big Fist. Where is you going?” asked a gruffly alluring voice. The path in front of them was blocked by six imposing ogre females. These were perhaps not the prettiest or most well-endowed of the women, but they were the most influential ones; the women in charge of the cooking and healing and breeding done within the tribe.

There were some new faces among them, but Fist recognized Marg the Gutter and Fixer Fan. The woman that had spoken was Momma Zung. She was the woman in charge of all the females in the tribe. In reality, she had more influence than anyone except for the chief. Even so, Fist had seen her lead Crag around by the ear a few times over the years.

“We are going to the Jail Cave to free the rest of my tribe,” Fist replied. The Jail Cave was at the far end of the shelf at a section where the cliff face was weakened by crumbling rock. The ceilings of the cave dripped constantly. This made it less than desirable as living space, but a perfect place to keep ogres that needed punishment. “It is good to see you again, Momma Zung.”

The ogress moved forward, the firelight gleaming across her face. She had once been Crag’s favorite and much of that beauty still remained. When Fist was small, he had thought she might be his mother, but Crag had told him that his mother had been stolen away by another tribe.

Zung reached out and cupped his chin with her hand. “We heared about Puj.”

“She was a good healer,” said Fixer Fan.

Fist nodded slightly, unwilling to correct her. It saddened him to think about Puj, but there was nothing he could do to change what had happened. “My tribe killed the ogres who hurt her.”

I did, Squirrel corrected.

Zung smiled. “Do not worry, Fist. We will get another women for you.”

“Oh, uh. You do not need to do that,” Fist said.

“We must,” she insisted. “Crag promised you a women. Come with us and I will help you pick one.”

Maryanne cleared her throat and stepped between Fist and Momma Zung, forcing the ogress to take a step back. “You heard him. That won’t be necessary.”

“It touched me,” Momma Zung said in surprise.

“What is that skinny thing?” asked Marg the Gutter, stepping forward and eyeing Maryanne with distaste. She was the most imposing of the ogresses, large and smelly, in charge of the butchering of animals brought back by the ogre hunters. “Why does it wear shiny skins?”

“This is Maryanne. She is a gnome and she’s in my tribe,” Fist said.

“This thing is your women?” Mother Zung asked, looking both disgusted and amused at the thought. “Then we must get you a new one.”

Fist laughed nervously. This wasn’t going his way. “Well, she’s-.”

“That’s right,” Maryanne declared, stepping closer to the ogress and glaring. Though Mother Zung was probably twice her weight, Maryanne was taller than her by a good six inches and the intensity of her gaze was intimidating. “Fist is my man!”

Fist’s eyes widened. Charz took one look at the expression on his face and broke out into a fit of laughter. This confused the ogre women further and they looked at Fist questioningly. They understood that this woman, if that’s what she was, was terribly skinny and they found that amusing, but would Fist allow this giant to mock his choice in women, to guffaw and slap his knee so openly?

Maryanne turned and stormed at the giant. Her attack came so fast that Fist barely caught how she did it in the flickering firelight. The auburn-haired gnome was suddenly behind him.

First, she sent a sharp kick into the back of Charz’s knee. The joint crumpled, sending him teetering off balance. Then she was somehow in front of him and high in the air, spinning. Her right foot lashed out, then her left, catching the rock giant under the jaw both times. Charz’s head was rocked back and he fell to the ground with an audible oof.

She landed lithely, then flicked her hair out of her eyes and pointed, swinging her arm in a broad gesture that took in all of the ogres that had seen the spectacle. “That’s right! Fist is my man and if any of you dare challenge that, you will have to fight me!”

Several of the male ogres that were nearby looked at each other and muttered. A male fighting a female? How unbecoming. But the ogre females understood that the message was directed at them and they all understood that they were being given a warning. Fist was off limits.

She stormed away from the giant and walked over to Fist, linking her arm in his before turning back to say one more thing loudly to the crowd. “And this ‘shiny stuff’ I’m wearing is leather armor made by elves. It’s comfortable and allows me freedom of movement!” She tightened her glare at Mother Zung. “Unlike those bulky furs you girls wear.”

I like her now, Squirrel decided. You should choose her.

Charz didn’t bother getting up. He lay in the dirt and sighed. “You know my face still really hurts, Maryanne.”

“That’s why I aimed for under your chin, you big oaf,” she replied. “Now get up and come along with us. It’s time we left these women behind.”

“Naw, I think I’ll rest here for a minute,” Charz said, placing both hands behind his head. “Hey, ogre ladies! You got a injured warrior over here that needs to be babied!” Several ogresses giggled and rushed to his side, some of them leaving disappointed ogre men behind.

Maryanne pulled Fist past the ogre women and he couldn’t help but note the offended glare in Mother Zung’s eyes. He hoped that this incident wouldn’t come back to haunt him.

“Why did you do that?” Fist asked her once they were out of earshot of the women.

“Do what?” Maryanne asked innocently.

“You told everyone that you were my woman,” Fist said.

“No. I said that you were my man,” she corrected. “It was a definite declaration.” The gnome warrior patted his arm. “Oh, don’t look flummoxed. I was doing you a favor. Now those ogresses won’t be trying to drag you off into some dark cave every time you turn around. Isn’t that something you wanted to avoid?”

“Yes,” Fist said slowly. “But-.”

“And don’t pretend that you haven’t noticed how some of those men have been looking at me,” she added. “You don’t want some ogre trying to lay his grubby hands on me do you?”

“No,” he said, even more slowly. That wasn’t exactly an observation he had made, but it seemed like a very bad idea to point that out.

She gave him a wry smile. “Besides, you know you’ve been thinking about it anyway. And since we now have to keep up appearances, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to make up your mind.”

I’m confused, Rufus said.

So am I, Fist replied.

It is good, Squirrel said. Fist has a mate now. He will be more happy.

That is not what just happened, Fist said unconvincingly. Maryanne had been so in charge of that conversation he wasn’t quite sure what he had agreed to. He was trying to figure out how to talk to her about it and set some things straight when they arrived at the Jail Cave.

The jail door, consisting of several tree branches lashed together and held in place by large rocks, had been thrown open and Fist could see two large feet sticking out from the dark entrance.

“Fist! Maryanne! There you are!” Whispered Qenzic urgently. The academy graduate looked quite upset. “Come here. Quietly.”

As Fist moved closer, his eyes adjusted to the darkness and he noticed a dim light coming from around a bend in the back of the cave. Standing next to him was Lyramoor. A large ogre lay at the elf’s feet. He wasn’t moving. A sick feeling rose in Fist’s stomach.

“What happened?” Maryanne asked.

“Lyramoor killed the guard,” Qenzic replied.

Chapter Eight

“I was sitting around for a long time waiting to see if Fist would get them to free you,” Lyramoor said to Qenzic. He glanced at Fist irritably. “You took too long.”

Fist placed a hand over his face. This was his fault. He knew that Lyramoor was volatile. He should have done something about it when the elf had disappeared, but there had been so many other things for him to worry about that he’d let it slide.

“What were you thinking?” Maryanne snapped at the elf. “Charz fought a big acid licking giant to free them. We were delayed getting here a little, but come on!”

“Alright. I may have acted a bit too quickly, but I had no way of knowing what was taking you so long,” Lyramoor replied.

“You could have stuck with the plan and stayed with us,” Maryanne said.

The elf sighed. “It’s not that big a problem, right? It’s just one dead ogre.”

“It’s a problem,” Fist said numbly.

He crouched next to the guard and turned him over. Fist didn’t recognize him. He was a youthful ogre. He had a stout face with a prominent brow and a jutting jaw. Fist sent his magic into the body. The elf had been efficient. A throwing dagger to the eye and a finishing wound to the heart.

Fist gritted his teeth in anger. “Just one dead ogre? What if I said, ‘Just one dead human?’or ‘Just one dead elf?’”

“Yeah. Sorry about the way I said that,” Lyramoor said.

Fist closed his eyes and shook his head. “This is my fault. I brought you all here. I was proud to have you all in my tribe.”

“Surely it’s not that bad,” Maryanne said. “Ogres are violent types. They expect accidental deaths to happen from time to time, don’t they?”

“Yes, ogres are violent,” Fist replied bitterly. “That does not mean that we don’t care about the lives of others in our tribe. We have strong bodies. We can handle violence. Accidental deaths are rare.” He pointed to the body prone at their feet. “He may not have had a family like the smarter races do. But this ogre had responsibilities in the tribe. This ogre had friends. He will be missed. And the Thunder People are always harsh when someone kills a member of their tribe.”

“I . . .” Lyramoor looked away, uncharacteristically chastened. “I was only thinking of Qenzic and Wizard Locksher.”

“No, you were dwelling on your past like always, Lyramoor,” Qenzic snapped. Lyramoor had barely left his side since Sabre Vlad’s death and months of frustration over the elf’s dour behavior were bubbling over. “I know your feelings about being imprisoned, but we were only locked up because of a misunderstanding. The Thunder People aren’t dwarf smugglers. They aren’t even our enemies. They’re supposed to be our allies on this mission.”

The elf looked down, his hands clenched, but said nothing, his expression unreadable in the darkness.

“What do you think the Thunder People will want to do about this?” Maryanne asked.

“It would be different if the guard had attacked and he was just defending himself, but as it is? They might want to execute Lyramoor,” Fist replied. He looked around. “Where is Professor Locksher?”

“He’s in the back. Around the corner,” Qenzic replied, giving Lyramoor a look of worry mixed with irritation.

“All of you, stay here,” Fist said and ducked down as he walked deeper into the cave. He wished Justan was there. Hopefully, Locksher would know what to do.

The interior of the Jail Cave was chilly, but warm enough that the water dripping from the ceiling didn’t freeze. The result was that it was wet year round, with puddles of water here and there along the floor of the cave. Decades of being used as a jail had also left it smelling like stale urine.

The ceiling lowered further in the rear of the cave and Fist had to hunch over to turn the corner. Wizard Locksher had found the one dry place in the cave and was sitting with his knees drawn up in front of him. He was reading a book by the soft light of a glow orb that sat on top of an overstuffed pack that was gaping open on the floor beside him.

“Master Locksher,” Fist said.

Locksher held up a finger as he finished the paragraph he was on, then looked up from his book. “Oh, there you are, Fist. I assume that your arrival means the matter of our imprisonment has been settled?”

“Yes,” Fist said. “I’m sorry it took so long to get you released. I . . . it’s a long story. We need you at the front of the cave.”

“Very well.” He placed the book back into his pack, but kept the orb out as he pulled the drawstrings closed. The wizard stood. “We had a fairly eventful journey after you left us. I learned a few interesting tidbits about this ‘evil’ we are facing. It is a bit larger than we expected.”

“Yeah. Maryanne and I saw it this morning,” Fist said.

“‘It’?” The wizard raised an eyebrow in interest. “What do you mean, you saw ‘it’.”

“The black lake of larvae,” Fist replied. He turned and walked back into the depths of the cave. “We had to fight our way past it on our way.”

Locksher picked up his pack and followed behind him. “Don’t leave it at that, apprentice. Describe it to me. What were its dimensions? What kinds of beasts did you have to fight past? These are all crucial facts that will help me better understand the nature of our enemy.”

“I will tell you all about that later, Master. I promise. but-,” Fist turned back to look at him again. “I should warn you before we reach the others. I bonded with a rogue horse this morning. You’ll see him. His name’s Rufus. Also, Lyramoor murdered your guard.”

“I . . . see.” Both of the wizard’s eyebrows were up now. “Carry on then.”

When they reached the front of the cave, Lyramoor and Qenzic had finished dragging the ogre’s body the rest of the way into the cave. Locksher paused as they walked past Rufus, who was holding his nose, quite disgusted by the stench of the place.

“Stinks,” the rogue horse complained.

“Sorry, Rufus,” Fist said. “I would have you wait outside, but people would see you and we don’t want more attention.”

“Fascinating. He can speak and he’s part gorilla,” said Locksher. He lifted his glowing orb and stepped forward to examine Rufus closer.

“You can look at him later,” Fist said. He grabbed the wizard’s arm and pulled him past the rogue horse. He placed him in front of the corpse. “What do you think we should do, Master?”

Locksher threw an irritated glance over his shoulder at Fist, then crouched down and examined the guard. After a moment, he looked over at the elf and tut tutted, “Couldn’t you have rendered him unconscious instead?”

The elf snorted. “I’m Swordweilder’s Guild. I never trained to knock ogres unconscious.”

Locksher inclined his head. “This is a sticky situation. Ideally, of course, we would report the death of this ogre to the proper authorities and plead our case.”

“Good,” Fist said, feeling better. “I hoped you would say that.”

“However,” Locksher added. “We are in a bit of a peculiar circumstance, aren’t we? We are on a mission of crucial importance and if an incident like this could possibly hamper our ability to complete our mission, it might be wise to take a less ideal route.”

“Fist thinks that the ogres might want to kill Lyramoor in exchange,” Maryanne said.

“That is not a desired result, I suppose,” Locksher said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

“Thanks, wizard,” Lyramoor said bitterly.

“That might not happen,” Fist replied unconvincingly. Ogre law was pretty specific. The punishment was equal to the crime. “Since we are in a war against the evil and our tribes are allies, Crag might make an exception. The rest of the tribe wouldn’t be happy about it, though.”

“You’re all thinking too hard about this,” Lyramoor said. “I say we just lie about it. Make it look like he died some other way.”

“I’m not very good at lying,” Fist said.

Not good, Squirrel agreed.

“Come on, we have a wizard here with us,” Maryanne said. “Surely, it wouldn’t be too hard for Locksher here to make it look like there was an accident. You know, change the injuries with healing magic or whatever.”

Locksher nodded. “Well, if you were trying to cover up a murder, I am likely the best person to have at your disposal. As Wizard of Mysteries, I have spent many years solving crimes like this. Some of them very cleverly hidden. I must admit that I have given quite a bit of thought as to how it could be done right. Hypothetically, of course.”

Good! Squirrel agreed. Hide it!

“I don’t like this idea,” Fist said with a groan. “Plans like this always go bad.”

“These are ogres,” Lyramoor said. “They ain’t gonna figure nothing out.”

Locksher gave the elf a dull look. “You do realize what you just said.”

“What?” asked the elf.

“You used two negative words that changed the meaning of what you were trying to say,” Qenzic explained. “You basically just said that they would figure something out.”

Lyramoor’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “No I didn’t.”

Locksher rolled his eyes. “I will leave this decision up to you, Fist. You know the ways of your people best.”

Fist’s shoulders slumped. It would have been so much easier if the wizard had just taken the decision out of his hands. The thing was that they were right. Locksher could change the wounds with magic and make it look like something else had happened and there was no way for the ogres to tell. But that just felt . . . wrong.

“I see you are having some difficulty deciding,” Locksher said. “Very well. In the meantime, let’s discuss something more crucial to our mission. What I want to hear is what you and Maryanne found at that black lake today.”

“You were there?” Qenzic asked.

Fist sighed. “Well-.”

“Hey! What are you . . . oh!” shouted a coarse voice and Fist turned to see a startled ogre standing at the entrance of the cave. Fist recognized him as Dirt, one of the ogres that he had grown up with. “Uh, hey, Big Fist. I saw you at the big cave. It is good that you are back with us.”

Fist glanced down and saw that the body had disappeared, covered by a sheet of air magic. He cleared his throat. “Thank you, Dirt. It is good to be back.”

“Good,” the ogre replied and stood there staring at them with a smile on his face. Fist cocked his head at the ogre questioningly and Dirt blinked. “Um, sorry. I was looking for Glum. He was supposed to be here guarding the Jail Cave. Did you saw him?”

“Uh, no,” Fist said. His voice sounded unnatural to his ears and he hoped that the ogre didn’t notice. He looked at Maryanne. “Did you see him?”

“No,” she said, looking to the others. They all shrugged in unison.

“Oh,” Dirt said. He scratched his head and turned around, looking into the darkness around the outside of the cave. “Hey! Glum!”

“Uh, maybe he went back to the main camp,” Lyramoor suggested. “You know, since we ain’t prisoners anymore.”

“Huh? Oh,” Dirt said. “I go look for him there then.” His brow furrowed in confusion for a moment. Then he shrugged. “Bye, Fist.”

“Bye, Dirt,” Fist replied. The ogre turned and walked back towards the camp and Fist sighed, exhausted as if he had run five miles. “I can’t believe we just did that.”

“Focus back on the matter at hand,” Locksher replied. “You were going to tell me what you found this morning.”

“Well, we first saw it from up above. We were pushing through a trail that was deep with snow. Then there were so many flies in the snow . . .” Fist found himself staring down at the sheet of air magic covering the ogre’s body. With his mage sight it glowed a bright yellow. He couldn’t think straight. He kept wondering what Justan would say about the situation.

“We were at the opening of a canyon gorge,” Maryanne said, trying to be helpful. “We could see the black lake at the bottom. It was making a lot of heat-.”

“No,” Fist said.

“No?” Maryanne repeated, unsure what part of the story he was objecting to.

“No, we will not hide this,” Fist said, making up his mind. “Rufus come here. Maryanne, help me put the body on his back.”

Rufus came over to the cave entrance and Fist and Maryanne each grabbed one of the dead ogre’s thick arms. They began hoisting him up.

“Are you sure about this?” Maryanne said as they laid the body awkwardly on the rogue horse’s back.

“Yes,” said Fist, moving to Rufus’s other side. He pulled the body into better position. “The way of the Big and Little People should be better than other tribes. I will show the Thunder People that we do the honorable thing.”

“Will you be bringing Lyramoor with you? So that he can tell his reasons for doing what he did?” Locksher asked.

“No!” said Qenzic and Fist at the same time.

“It will be best if they do not see him until their anger has died down,” Fist added.

“If that is what you wish, Fist,” Locksher said and there was something akin to approval in his voice. “But what will you do if they decide they want blood?”

“Yeah, I ain’t sticking my neck out for them to wring, if that’s what you’re thinking,” said Lyramoor.

“I will not allow you to be executed,” Fist assured him. “We will have to make it up to them another way.”

“That sounds like it could be tedious,” Lyramoor said irritably.

“Um, at least you won’t be dying,” Qenzic reminded him.

“I’ll come with you,” Maryanne said.

“No,” Fist said. “I need you to stay here and talk to Professor Locksher. Tell him everything that happened to us this morning. Then if I’m not back yet, you should all set up camp nearby.”

Locksher opened his overstuffed pack and pulled out a notebook. “That sounds like a grand idea. Come, Maryanne. Don’t leave out anything. I’ll have Fist fill in any details you may not have when he returns.”

She gave him a regretful look, but as Fist headed back towards the big cave the gnome warrior was telling Locksher everything she remembered. Fist felt a sense of relief. He was confident that he was making the right decision. Crag had changed much from the angry brutish stickler for traditions that he had been when Fist was younger.

You are too nice, Squirrel admonished him as they walked past the multiple firesides of the camp. The little creature was still sitting on his shoulder, and was working on a particularly thick shelled nut. His thoughts were punctuated by sharp cracking sounds that echoed in Fist’s ear. You should have hided it.

“You need to stop trying to act so mean, Squirrel,” Fist replied aloud. “You may have killed one ogre, but that doesn’t make you like Deathclaw.”

I am, Squirrel insisted.

“Hey, that thing killed a ogre!” said an ogre nearby, pointing at the body on Rufus’ back.

“That’s Glum! He killed Glum,” said another ogre.

Fist realized that they had overheard him speaking to Squirrel and had assumed he was talking to Rufus. “No,” he said. “That was someone else.”

“You sure he is dead?” asked another one, an ogre female. “Maybe he is sleeping.”

People began to crowd around them. One of them was Dirt, the ogre that had come looking for glum. He had a sad look on his face. “There is a hole in his eye. You telled me you did not see him.”

“We found him,” Fist said and immediately felt bad at how quickly the lie came even though he had been determined to tell the truth. “Uh, I’m taking him to Crag.”

“Hey! Tell Crag Fist is coming,” Dirt yelled. “Somebody killed Glum!”

A few of the ogres ran towards the big cave. Others were asking, “Who is Glum?” “Did Big Fist kill him?” “It was the gwatch!”

“Me?” Rufus asked, concerned.

“It’s okay, Rufus,” Fist said, patting the rogue horse’s arm. “I’ll tell them you didn’t do it.”

It was out of control now. Ogres were spreading the news as fast as they could yell. “It was not the gwatch!” “It was the gwatch!” “Grum is dead!” “Fum?” “Oh no. Fum is dead?”

By the time he came at the fire where Crag was sitting, the camp was abuzz with misinformation and Fist was surrounded by a sizeable retinue. Old Falog and Momma Zung were sitting with Crag and all three of them stood expectedly when he arrived. Momma Zung was giving Fist a particularly intense glare. Fist instantly regretted letting Maryanne offend the ogress, not that he could have stopped her.

“What is this, Fist?” Crag asked. The outside of his arm was red and badly swollen. It looked painful. Big blisters had formed where the brander had done his work.

“I have brought you the body of the ogre that was guarding the Jail Cave. I was told his name is Glum,” Fist said.

“Take him down,” Crag said and two ogres took the body off of Rufus’ back and laid it before the chief. Crag looked at it for a moment and then turned to Falog. “Who is Glum?”

“He was once a Spider People, but becomed a Thunder People when you was gone,” Old Falog answered, shaking his head at the body. He was still wearing his red fur cloak, but spoke to Crag deferentially. “He was guarding Fist’s little peoples tonight.”

Crag frowned at Fist. “What happened? They telled me that Big Head killed him.”

“No!” Rufus said worriedly.

It’s okay. “Rufus wasn’t the one who killed him,” Fist said.

“They finded him like this,” said Dirt, trying to be helpful.

“They finded him with a hole in his eye?” Crag asked.

Momma Zung was leaning over the body. She held up a bloody finger. “And in his heart. Glum was stabbed. Maybe by a spear.”

Fist winced at how quickly that lie had come back to bite him. “Actually it was someone in my tribe that killed him.”

“They did?” said Dirt, his voice hurt.

“It was that skinny women,” Momma Zung guessed.

“No,” Fist said. “It wasn’t Maryanne. It was the elf, Lyramoor.”

Crag’s eyes tightened. He and the elf hadn’t exactly been chummy during the journey up the mountains, but he knew him well enough to be surprised at this. “Why did he do this? What did Glum do to him?”

“Glum was guarding the cave like he was supposed to,” Fist replied. His jaw shook as he tried to think of the best way to put it. “It was a mistake. Lyramoor killed him while trying to free the other members of my tribe.”

“He stabbed him in the eye and heart by mistake?” Old Falog said in disbelief. There was a low rumble among the ogres.

“No,” Fist admitted. “He did those things on purpose. His mistake was that he thought he was saving his friends. He did not know that they were being released.”

Crag folded his arms, a quiver of his lip the only sign that the movement had stretched his burned skin. “You telled me our tribes is allies. That means we do not kill you and you do not kill us.”

“You are right,” Fist said. “We are allies. Still, a member of my tribe did this thing. That is why I am here.”

“You do know the rules about this?” Old Falog asked, but before Fist could answer he said, “If we is not at war and a ogre from another tribe kills one of ours, that tribe must bring us the head of the killer or we will go to war on them.”

There were nods of agreement throughout the crowd.

“I will not kill him for this,” Fist replied. There were rumbles of outrage among the ogres. “My tribe is already at war!” Fist yelled. “But not with the Thunder People. We are here to fight the evil! Lyramoor is a good fighter. We cannot afford to lose any more good fighters if we are to win this war!”

The angry rumbles faded a bit at this, but Crag wasn’t mollified.

“Our tribe losed one good fighter too! What is you telling me, Fist? Your Big and Little People Tribe, the one you think is so good, can kill my people and you will do nothing to make this right?”

“No. I . . . My tribe will take responsibility for what happened. We will try to make this right in whatever way we can, but we will not kill one of our own just to make you feel better.” Fist turned so that all the ogres gathered could see him. “We are here to fight for you! We are here to fight this evil, not just to save ourselves, but to save the Thunder People too!” He looked back at Crag. “Does that not count for something?”

Old Falog cocked his head. “Maybe if they gived us some of their womens.”

Fist sighed. “We don’t have any ogre women to give you.”

“Then another member of your tribe,” Momma Zung suggested. “A male one to replace the warrior that you killed.”

“Yes!” said Crag. “Or you could give us a wizard that can fix us with magics.” He grew excited. “Or-or a cook that can make us those human foods.”

“Yes!” cried Rub, who was standing nearby. The ogres had become quite enamored with the taste of the food that the Mage School had provided for their journey.

Fist resisted the urge to put his face in his hands. He told himself that this was a step in the right direction. They weren’t talking death anymore. Perhaps the best thing was to give the ogres time to calm down about Glum’s death.

He forced a smile. “It sounds like we will be able to come up with something you will be happy with. Uh, but much of what you are asking for are things we don’t have with us. Perhaps we can discuss this later once the evil has been killed?”

“That will be good. Bring us a cook after the war,” Crag said, nodding.

“A cook?” Rufus said.

“We will talk about that again . . . then,” Fist said.

“Good,” Crag said. “Go tell that elf little people that we will not kill him for this.”

“Thank you, Crag,” Fist said, feeling both relieved and uneasy, not sure what exactly he had accomplished.

When he finally made his way back to his friends it was late. They had made a campsite not far from the Jail Cave. It was next to a small stand of stunted fir trees a short distance away from the Thunder People campfires. They had a fire of their own going and were cooking up some carrion birds that Maryanne had been able to bring down with arrows. There were usually many of them flying around ogre camps and there were even more now with the evil so close by.

Everyone gathered around when Fist came into view. Maryanne linked her arm with his. “How did it go?”

“Are they determined to kill me?” Lyramoor asked.

“We heard a bit of a ruckus from over here but some ogres appeared with our horses and gear a little while ago,” Qenzic said. “No one attacked us so I assume things went well.”

“No, Lyramoor, they are not going to kill you.” Fist said. “But they are demanding that we make up for what you did and I promised them that we would.”

“And how are they expecting us to do that?” Maryanne asked.

“They want me to replace their lost tribe member with one of ours. Hopefully someone that can cook,” Fist said.

Qenzic scoffed. “You’re giving one of us away . . . to the Thunder People.”

“No,” Fist said. “I’m not. What I told them was that we would talk again once the evil was destroyed and figure something out.”

“That something being a person that has to stay behind and live with the ogres,” Qenzic repeated.

“Nonsense,” said Locksher with a chuckle. “They’re ogres. They will have calmed down and mostly forgotten about this by then. They will be happy that we helped them defeat their enemy and Fist will be able to appease them with some loaves of bread or something.”

Really? Squirrel said, sounding unsure.

“That is my plan,” Fist replied. He looked around. “Didn’t Charz come back yet?”

“Where is he anyway?” Locksher asked. “I had hoped that you would bring him back with you.”

“I didn’t see him in the camp,” Fist said.

Maryanne chuckled. “He’s probably still at the women’s caves.”

“He was healing from an injury. Maybe he fell asleep,” Fist said. “I’m sure he will make his way back to us sooner or later.”

Locksher frowned. “Hopefully sooner, because we have messages to send tonight and I need him to talk to Alfred at the academy.”

“I will talk to Sarine,” Maryanne said. “She can relay the message to Darlan and make sure the academy is informed.”

“What messages are you talking about?” Fist asked the wizard.

“From what you saw at that black lake and from the size of the force that we helped the Thunder People fight off this morning, it’s likely that we do not have the means to destroy this enemy on our own. We may need wizards and we will need warriors to protect them,” Locksher replied. “Therefore, we must contact the academy and Mage School and tell them that they should start preparing in case an attack force is needed. If my suspicion is confirmed, they will need to start immediately or the passes could clear and this evil will spread past our ability to contain it.”

Fist nodded. He had come to the same conclusion himself.

“How long would it take for them to get here?” Maryanne wondered.

“The portal between the Mage School and academy helps things,” Locksher said. “The High Council will be able to assemble the wizard forces fairly quickly. What do you think Qenzic? How about the academy?”

“Uh, well Faldon will have been preparing for this eventuality, sir,” Qenzic replied. “To form an attack force would take only a week or so.”

“The wizards will not move that quickly. Let’s call it two,” Locksher said.

“And then it would take at least three weeks for them to travel here from the academy,” Fist figured. “But what would we do while we wait for them to arrive?”

“We help the ogres fight,” said the wizard. “We keep the focus of whatever is controlling these larvae focused on us. If we can keep it distracted, perhaps that will slow the spread of its influence until our reinforcements arrive.”

“There are definitely improvements the Thunder People can make,” Qenzic said. “I noticed during the battle this morning, they have basically no fortifications at all. They’ve simply been meeting the enemy head on.”

“What are you thinking? Barricades?” Lyramoor asked.

Qenzic shrugged. “We’re short on building materials, but surely there’s enough rock around here that we could build some walls. I was also thinking that we could find out what route they are taking to get here and see if we can find a good choke point to stop them at.”

“I think I know,” Fist said. “We saw a long line of them walking one of the trails.”

Maryanne smiled. “That’s right. We saw plenty of good ambush spots while we were trying to sneak by them.”

“That means we could set some good traps,” Lyramoor said, his thoughts churning.

“My question is, what are we waiting for?” Qenzic said. “We already know things are bad up here. They seem even worse with each new piece of information we find. Why not tell them to start on their way now?”

“Because we still don’t have the whole picture,” Locksher replied. “This will be a large, long, and expensive undertaking for both schools. They are going to want to know how many warriors and wizards they need to send.”

“And what piece of information do you still need?” Maryanne asked.

“That’s what I wanted to discuss next,” Locksher said. “Fist, I will want you to take me to that black lake sometime within the next few days. I will need to see it for myself.”

“Okay,” Fist said, though he wasn’t really looking forward to going back there any time soon.

“I would like to see it as well,” Qenzic added.

“Believe me, you don’t,” said Maryanne, echoing Fist’s thoughts. “It’s not an experience anyone would ‘like’ to have.”

“I think we would all be better off with a look,” Lyramoor added. “It’s best to know your enemy.”

“Great,” said Maryanne sarcastically. “Sorry, I’m just hungry.” She looked over at Fist. “Aren’t you hungry?”

The birds were finished cooking, so they sat down and ate as they continued discussing their plans. The meat was gamey and a bit stringy, but Maryanne was a decent cook and Fist was surprised with how good the carrion birds tasted.

The only problem was that there wasn’t quite enough. Maryanne had shot enough birds for Fist to have two and everyone else to have one, but Fist was still hungry after he was finished.

Rufus was quite displeased with this outcome as he was forced to eat grain like the horses. As a rogue horse, he was designed to be able to survive on just about anything that a creature could eat, be it vegetable or animal, but he had his own particular tastes and he let them know about it.

When he had finished his allotted grain, he edged close to the others. He pulled down a branch and stripped off a handful of pine needles, then chewed them slowly, all the while watching them eat with large sad eyes. “Meat.”

“Aww. Sorry, I didn’t know,” Maryanne said, feeling guilty. “I’ll make sure that I cook one for you too next time.”

“Here you are, Rufus,” Locksher said and threw what was left of his carcass to the rogue horse.

“Locksher!” Maryanne chided. “That was mostly bones.”

“I read a book about rogue horses not too long ago, Maryanne,” the wizard replied. “It’s a little known fact, but they love bones. It’s rumored that this tendency is left over from the fact that Stardeon loved dogs.”

“I like bones!” Rufus said. He snatched the carcass off of the ground and tossed it into his mouth. He chewed happily, grunting. Soon everyone else tossed him their bones as well.

“Strange,” said Fist. “I had always assumed that was just Gwyrtha.”

Maryanne yawned and stretched. “Well, dinner’s done. I am ready to get some sleep. How about you, Fist?”

Fist echoed her yawn.  “Yeah.” Now that she mentioned it, Fist realized he was exhausted. It had been a very long day full of stress and magic and battles. At that moment, all he wanted to do was to lie down in his bedroll with his nice pillow. He looked over at the horses and frowned. He really didn’t want to muster the strength to retrieve his things from the horses.

“Ooh. Ooh. Me!” Rufus reminded him.

“You want to get it for me? Oh! Right.” He had a rogue horse to siphon energy from. Fist smiled. “Thanks, Rufus. I forgot!”

Like he had at the black lake earlier that morning, Fist reached through the bond and pulled some energy from Rufus’ vast stores. But this time he had a better idea of when to stop and didn’t overdo it. Feeling much better, he jumped up and retrieved his things and laid his bedroll out not too far from the fire.

As he did so, he grew excited about talking to Justan. He wanted to find out if the nightbeast had shown up at Yntri Yni’s funeral. Also there was so much he needed to tell Justan about. He didn’t even know about Rufus yet.

“Rufus, you will love Justan. He is so smart and so good.” Rufus already knew a lot about Fist’s tribe from earlier conversations they’d had during the journey that morning, but Fist started feeding him fond memories through the bond. “Oh! And you will get to talk to Gwyrtha again.”

“Ooh! Yes!” Rufus said in excitement. He hadn’t seen her in quite some time.

Fist took off his boots and unstrapped his breastplate. Then he slipped under the cold blankets with a soft hiss and sighed as his head hit the pillow that his friends, Becca and Miss Nala, had made him. It was stuffed with dried honstule blossoms and he could still smell their slightly sweet scent. He closed his eyes and prepared to reach out to Justan.

“Hey, would you move your pillow over a little bit,” Maryanne interrupted as she unrolled her own bedroll right next to his. “I mean I don’t mind sharing with you if that’s what you want. It’s better than what I got.”

Fist moved his pillow over slightly while she rolled up her jacket and plopped it down next to his head. “Uh, you are sleeping this close?”

She began unlacing her armor. “Hey, you’re my man now, didn’t you hear?” Maryanne chuckled at the way his face froze. “Don’t forget we need to keep up appearances, or that little show I gave those ogresses will be for nothing. Wow, I have been wanting to get out of these things for days.”

She pulled off her armor and then, standing in her underthings for a few brief moments, she folded it and set it next to her bedroll. She slid into her own blankets with a shiver. “Ooh! Cold, don’t you think? I think I was a lot warmer cuddling up to you during those snowstorms on the way up here.”

Fist swallowed. “Uh, yes. Do you want to borrow my robe?”

“Nah. I think this will warm up soon enough, but I’ll let you know,” she said and closed her eyes. “I’m gonna contact Sarine now.”

“Okay,” Fist said. He closed his eyes again.

“You know, sooner or later, you’re going to have to kiss me,” Maryanne added. Fist’s eyes popped open and he looked over at her, but her eyes were still closed. He could just see the edge of one of her floppy ears peeking out from under her auburn hair. The corner of her lips twisted into a smile. “I’ll let you be the one to decide when as long as you don’t take too long. Now shh. I’m talking to Sarine.”

Fist found that his heart was beating quickly. She was just as bold as any ogre woman, though perhaps not as vulgar about it. For a moment he thought about kissing her, but he pushed the thought away. It was time to contact Justan.

He reached through the bond just in time to be startled by a large whump! Rufus had plopped his heavy body right next to Fist and was laying on his side, looking at him, resting his head on his hand. You like this girl?

Of course he does, sent Squirrel, scurrying down from one of the fir trees and wedging himself between them. He is just shy.

That’s not it. I’m just not sure, Fist said. Well that’s not quite true. I do like her, but I don’t know what that means. Do you know what I mean?

Nope, Rufus replied. You going to talk to Justan now?

Yes, Fist said. He closed his eyes and reached through the bond and this time he was deep enough into it that he didn’t even notice when Rufus swung his long arm across him and Maryanne and yanked them all a little closer together.

Chapter Nine

The morning air was humid and warm enough that Jhonate already knew it would be a scorcher. By the time she finished her run sweat dripped from her brow and had soaked through her shirt. She entered the palace proper, her staff rapping staccato notes on the wooden floors as she stormed down the hallway towards her rooms.

Among the Roo-Tan, Jhonate Bin Leeths was not generally known as a cheerful woman. In fact, she had a reputation for being quite the firebrand. It was a reputation that she had cultivated intentionally.

During her childhood, Jhonate had been a happy girl. She had trained and played with the elves of the grove and basked in the love of her mother and father. But as she approached her teenage years, Jhonate had come to understand that the rest of her family did not share her parents’ adoration. Her mother was Xedrion’s sixth wife, and his favorite. The fact that Jhonate, his sixth born daughter and sixteenth born overall, had become his most favored child was hard for the rest of the family to swallow.

Years of bitterness and indifference from her siblings and her father’s other wives had left her with a rather large chip on her shoulder. She had grown determined to prove herself the equal of any of them and worthy of her father’s affection. By the time she was old enough to receive her Jharro weapon, Jhonate had developed a rather stern countenance. As she grew older she developed a reputation for lashing out at those who offended her, sometimes with a painful result.

This was why the female servant rounding the corner took one look at the dour look on Jhonate’s face and turned back the way she had come. The servant turned so quickly that she nearly knocked over a messenger who was rushing away from Xedrion’s conference room, a sheath of papers in his hands. He paused momentarily to glare at the servant and rounded the corner himself in time to come face-to-face with Xedrion’s sixth born daughter.

“Where are you going, Relf?” Jhonate asked.

There was no anger in her tone, but the messenger took one look at Jhonate’s eyes and forced a nervous smile. “Good morning, daughter of Xedrion. Back from your run so soon?”

“I asked you a question,” Jhonate repeated, her voice level.

“I have been sent on a summons,” he replied. Relf made as if to continue on his way, but Jhonate did not move. “Your father’s orders.”

“Whom are you retrieving?” Jhonate asked.

Relf paused as he tried to decide whether or not telling her would get him in trouble with the Protector. “Uh . . . that would be Elder Qelvyn. Your father wishes to see him again before he leaves.”

“Hmph,” she said, her frown tightening.

Elder Qelvyn was the ambassador for the so-called Mer-Dan Collective. That was the fancy name for the unlikely coalition of Roo-Dan savages and Merpeople that lived in  northeastern Malaroo. Jhonate was certain that this ambassador’s posturing was nothing more than an attempt to distract the Roo-Tan while they gathered their armies to attack.

She had one more question for the messenger. “Is Sir Edge still in there with my father?”

“Yes, daughter of Xedrion,” Relf replied.

This was the second morning in a row that Justan had not been in his room when she had come to collect him for training. That time with him was her favorite part of each day and she found it very vexing that this was being taken from her. She told herself that this was the main reason she was in a furious mood this morning, though the fact that her father hadn’t requested her presence in these meetings was equally vexing.

“What is today’s discussion about?” she asked.

“The same as usual. You know your father and his need for planning meetings,” Relf said with a chuckle. Jhonate raised an eyebrow and his cheeks colored as he realized that he might be overstepping his bounds. “Your betrothed has taken Sir Hilt’s place as the outsider representative.”

“Has he?” Jhonate chewed her lip as she considered this development.

The position of ‘outsider representative’ was an honorary post. Xedrion had made it up years ago in order to create a loophole that would allow his friend Sir Hilt to be one of his advisors. Hilt had a keen mind and often came up with observations and solutions to problems that his Roo-Tan advisors could not.

It had been over a week since Sir Hilt had been injured at the hands of the night beast assassin and he had not returned to his former duties. He was spending his days recuperating with his wife and adopted daughter and, Jhonate assumed, training with his damaged hand.

“Uh, Daughter of Xedrion,” Relf said hesitantly. “Your father is waiting for me to complete my duty.”

Jhonate realized that she was still blocking his path. “I see. You may go on your way then,” she said, stepping aside. The messenger made his way past her, glancing back to make sure she wasn’t going to stop him again.

Her frown had dissipated, a slight smile beginning to form at the corners of her lips. For Xedrion to have inserted Justan in Sir Hilt’s position was a great honor. It was even a likely sign that her father would soon approve their marriage.

Jhonate stood there for a moment, tapping her staff on the floor impatiently. She had grown extremely curious how Justan was doing in these meetings and it bothered her more than a little bit that her father hadn’t summoned her to participate with him. She was determined to get inside and observe the proceedings. All she needed was the right excuse.

Perhaps her mother would be her way in. Xedrion never managed to keep her out, even as heavily pregnant as she was. It was probably a good time to see her anyway, the woman was due any day now. Jhonate headed towards her rooms at a slight jog. First she needed to get into some clean clothes.

Jhonate’s rooms, like those of all her siblings, would have been considered austere by the standards of nobility. Xedrion was a man of order and he demanded the same from his family. The walls were plain and painted white and there was very little in the way of furniture. Her clothing and other personal items were kept in a closet out of the way.

Jhonate had come to prefer things this way and her quarters in the academy had been kept just as orderly. This was one area in which Justan needed some help. Since he had arrived at the palace, she had noted his tendency to leave his things lying about for the servants to put away for him. He had even complained to her that they kept moving his things. She hadn’t spent much time correcting him on the matter. He would learn soon enough once they were married.

Jhonate rushed into her bedroom and disrobed, casting her sweat stained garments into a bin for the servants to wash later. Then she entered her washroom and pulled a lever in the wall, releasing a cascade of water from a hole in the ceiling. Now this was something she had missed while she had been away from her people.

In Dremaldria, bathing had been a tedious process. Filling a tub with heated water, then sitting in it surrounded by your own dirt while you tried to scrub it away. In Roo-Tan’lan the water was lifted out of the canals to the top of the building by a series of water wheels to be delivered to the washrooms. The water might not have been heated, but in Malaroo’s climate it wasn’t cold either.

She stepped under her own private waterfall and used a clean cloth to scrub the sweat and grime away. It was a quick and efficient process, something that could be done daily, unlike bathing once or twice a week as done in Dremaldria.

Jhonate was nearly finished, when she heard a knocking at her door. “Who is there?”

The voice was immediately recognizable and caused the frown to reappear on Jhonate’s face. “It’s me, Vannya. I need to speak to you!”

She groaned in response. “Come in, then! I will visit with you in a moment.”

The mage entered the sitting room, slammed the door behind her, and immediately started talking. Jhonate could barely hear her over the sound of the water. “Jhonate you wouldn’t believe what I’ve discovered. It’s so very exciting. I- Oh! You’re naked.”

Jhonate turned around to see the startled mage standing in the doorway to the washroom. Vannya looked completely different than the last time Jhonate had seen her. The mage’s blond hair had been braided up in the Roo-Tan style and she had exchanged her Mage School robes for a local outfit.

Vannya wore a blue pair of those billowing trousers that Beth had made popular recently and the white shirt she had paired with it was the same type that spirit magic users wore. Of course, Jhonate noted, it all looked fantastic on her, even if she did strain the fabric at the bosom.

She shot Vannya a glare. “The polite thing to do is look away.”

Vannya did so. “Well, you could have warned me instead of saying come right in.”

“Did I say, ‘please come back and watch me bathe’?” Jhonate asked. She pushed the lever up, shutting the water off. “Did you not hear the water?”

“Well, excuse me, that tepid waterfall thing you people use hardly sounds like a bath. Do you know how hard it was for me to find a proper tub in this city?”

Jhonate wiped most of the water off her body with her hands and strode past the mage, heading towards her closet. She glanced back. “It looks like you have picked up some of our traditions.”

“Oh, you mean this?” Vannya said, tugging at her shirt and trousers. “I’ve been having some difficulty getting people to take me seriously and Alyssa, the girl that’s been assisting me, suggested that it might be helpful if I didn’t stand out quite so much. I quite like it, actually. They are so much more comfortable to wear than robes. In hot weather like this, I mean.”

This was supposed to help her blend in? As if it hid her blond hair and pale skin? Jhonate pulled on some clean underclothes. She sent a curt nod in the mage’s direction. “And the hair?”

“Do you like it?” she asked with a cute little grimace. “The moisture in the air did horrible things to my hair and Alyssa assured me that I wouldn’t offend anybody by braiding it up this way.”

That was true enough. The braids were traditional, but didn’t have any religious or military significance. “What made you decide on blue?”

Vannya grasped the braids on either side of her head. The blue ribbons woven into her braids exactly matched the color of her eyes. “Well, blue is the color of my strength in magic. It looks okay, then?”

Jhonate sighed. “You look beautiful as usual. Of course this will be much worse if your intention was to avoid standing out. Now that you do not look like a mage, the warriors are simply going to find you pleasantly exotic. You are going to be a grand distraction.”

Vannya looked crestfallen. “What else can I do?”

“Nothing. You are you.” Jhonate pulled her hide breastplate over her head and began tightening the laces that ran up the front. “Is that why you came to see me? To see if I liked your new clothing?”

A ripple of irritation ripped across the mage’s perfect features, but it was quickly forced away and replaced by excitement. “No! This is about that troll creature that you killed the other day. I have been studying its corpse and it is absolutely fascinating.”

“At least you are getting to work,” Jhonate said. Those strange troll creatures were the entire reason Justan had invited the mage here in the first place. As Wizard Locksher’s assistant, she was the closest thing to an expert on modified trolls available.

“Do you have to be so nasty all the time?” Vannya said.

“Nasty?” Jhonate said. She looked over the clothes that she had donned. They seemed perfectly clean to her.

“Nasty as in mean spirited or spiteful,” Vannya said, her voice sounding hurt. “Have I done anything to deserve it? I know we have argued in the past, but the reason for that is over. Am I treading on your foot in some way that I’m not aware of?”

“No. You . . .” The truth was that the girl was just so completely different from Jhonate that everything she did annoyed her. She seemed to represent everything that bothered Jhonate about other women rolled up in one voluptuous little blond package. Still, that wasn’t the woman’s fault. Not really. “I am sorry, Mage Vannya. You do not deserve the ire I have directed your way this morning. Can we start again?”

Vannya smiled. “Why thank you, Jhonate. Yes we can. I honestly didn’t think you were going to apologize. I half expected you to slap me.”

“I am not so coarse as that,” Jhonate said, then remembered that she had slapped the woman before. Twice. “But we are starting this conversation over. What is it that you wanted to tell me, Mage Vannya?”

Vannya rubbed her hands together. “The remains of the creatures that your brother found before I came down here were so desiccated that it was difficult to learn too much, but this new specimen that you and Sir Edge brought back the other day has provided a wealth of information. Too bad you had to kill it. A living specimen would have been much-.”

“What did you find, Vannya?” Jhonate pressed. She had been chastised on that particular subject quite enough.

The mage wrinkled her pert little nose at the interruption. “First of all, these creatures were not created by the Rings of Stardeon. The energy that filled the tissues of the modified trolls that Ewzad Vrill created simply aren’t there.”

Jhonate nodded. Justan had already surmised as much.

“This creature, along with the others, was made by something else and recently,” Vannya said.

“What do you mean?” Jhonate asked.

“Well, it obviously isn’t a type of creature that exists in nature so it had to have been created by something or someone,” the mage replied. “And though it seems to be fully grown, the bones in its body have the appearance of the bones of a child. In fact I would say that it is only a few months old.”

“I do not see how that is possible. It was walking around and using spirit magic,” Jhonate pointed out. “And the way Deathclaw described it, the creature threw a knife at him with practiced skill.”

“I agree. That is strange, but the bones do not lie.” Her brow furrowed and she pulled a small notebook and an ink cylinder from one of the vast pockets in her baggy trousers. She flipped open to a page and made a few notes. “Unless this particular type of creature simply does not age, which would be strange since even the bones of regular trolls have these signs.”

“So you believe that these creatures have been created recently,” Jhonate said. “Do you know for what purpose?”

“I have no idea,” Vannya replied. “Not without further study. However I have learned a bit more. For one thing, these things actually have souls.”

Jhonate gave her a wry look. “All creatures have souls, Mage Vannya.”

“Ah, but they don’t. Ever since the ban on spirit magic was lifted at the Mage School I have been doing research on bonding magic and I have learned some very fascinating things.” The more excited the woman grew, the more clinical she sounded. “One of them is that trolls do not have souls.”

“How could they not?” Jhonate asked. “They live.”

“Yes. As do plants. But, with a few rare exceptions, plants are soulless.” Vannya continued with a lecturing tone, “Souls are basically the essence of our being, evidenced by our ability to think and learn. Trolls are creatures completely governed by instincts. Hunger is their only motivating emotion and the only fear they have is of fire. The proof that they are soulless was given in a book written by a man who lived with the Roo-Tan for many years.

“He maintains that during his study of binding magic, he attempted to bind the soul of a troll. The local enchanter laughed at him and told him that this was a wasted endeavor, but the author felt that the soul of a troll would make an excellent companion for a spear. Because of their incessant hunger, you see. He went through all of the proper techniques, even eating part of the troll’s flesh and coating the spear with its slime, but all of his magical efforts were fruitless because, as his enchanter friend had tried to tell him-.”

“Trolls do not have souls,” Jhonate surmised. The woman was becoming as tedious as Wizard Locksher when he ran off on an academic tangent. “Anything else?”

Vannya frowned. “You treat this like a non-fact, but this is news, Jhonate, because it adds together with the other evidence I found and it creates a deeper level of understanding. You see, my latest findings are even more fascinating when you keep these things in mind.”

“Very well. What?” Jhonate asked. She really wanted to know where Vannya was going with this information.

Vannya began to pace, another Locksher trait. “It didn’t occur to me until just this morning, but as I was waking up, bam! There it was. This creature wasn’t just made up of troll parts and human parts and cat parts or whatever. He was all of these creatures in one.”

“So . . . What?” Jhonate squinted. “That does not make sense, Mage Vannya.”

“Alright. Let me explain better.” She gestured wildly with her hands as she spoke. “When Ewzad Vriil made his creations, he took different body parts from different types of creatures and used the magic in the Rings of Stardeon to alter the tissues so that he could kind of glue it all together. But the method of creation of these creatures is quite different. In this case it was like as if a human, a troll, and a cat, and a few other things all got together in some weird combinative orgy and somehow produced a single child from their coupling.”

Jhonate’s face twisted with disgust. “That description was incredibly revolting and likely unnecessary.”

Vannya cocked her head at her. “Of course. You’re right. Besides, it’s not even a complete analogy because trolls don’t have genitalia,” she added with a roll of her eyes. “The point is that this creature wasn’t pieced together with all these different parts. It was grown together as if in a womb, each animal material sort of randomly competing for a function. Kind of like the way a human baby has different components of its mother and father. The thing is that these various creatures aren’t anatomically compatible so it led to multiple deformities.”

Jhonate stared at her blankly for a moment, trying to piece together what Vannya had just said. “How is this possible?”

“Again, I have no idea,” Vannya said, grinning. “But we have to find out. I need more specimens and that’s why I need to talk to your father.”

“I agree with you,” Jhonate said. “Why then did you bring this information to me?”

“Because the Protector won’t see me,” Vannya replied. “I have been trying to get in to talk to him for several days and all they will tell me is that he will be notified of my request.”

Now Jhonate understood. Vannya saw her as the back way into seeing her father. Little did she know that Jhonate had been having just as difficult a time getting in to see him these last few days. “Exactly who is this ‘they’ that you have been speaking with?”

“The guards at the door to the conference room,” Vannya said. “Should I have talked to someone else?”

No doubt she had hoped to charm her way inside. Unfortunately for her, the Protector’s guards were hand-picked for their diligence. They would, however, have passed the message on as promised. Xedrion did know that she wanted to meet with him. He just chose not to reply.

Jhonate wondered if it was because she was a mage. The Roo people had long held a traditional belief that elemental magic was a sacrilege. They preached that the elements belonged to the gods. The Roo-Tan were long removed from their former belief system, but the old ways died hard and her father was very much a traditionalist.

When Justan had told Xedrion that he had sent for an expert on modified trolls, he hadn’t mentioned that she was a Mage School graduate. Officially wizards were not allowed in Malaroo. If Sir Hilt hadn’t needed her help with his injuries it was likely Vannya would either still be in prison or on her way to the border.

What Jhonate said was, “Perhaps he does not believe the matter important enough to warrant a meeting.”

“Not important enough? Haven’t you heard what I’ve been saying?” Vannya asked, throwing up her hands in exasperation. “Somewhere in those swamps is a wizard or a creature of some type that is creating these part-troll abominations. Aren’t you curious as to what its intentions are or how many of these beasts have been created? This could be every bit as big a threat to your people as some group of merpeople and a bunch of primitive savages cavorting along the coast.”

“Cavorting?” Jhonate said, momentarily amused by her outburst. Then a plan began to take shape in her mind. Perhaps Vannya’s dilemma was just the excuse she had been looking for. Her tone changed to one of curiosity. “What is it exactly you want from my father? Besides telling him what you told me.”

Vannya stopped her pacing. “Are telling me that you’ll talk to him?”

“If I think he will be interested,” Jhonate replied. “What is it?”

“Well, I believe I’ve learned all I can with these remains. What I need now is to see one of these things alive. I would like permission to go into the swamp, with some warriors of course, and attempt to capture one of these things.”

“Mage Vannya, what you are suggesting is extremely dangerous. This creature you have been studying had spirit magic. What if all of them do?”

“I doubt that’s possible,” Vannya said. “Their makeup is too random for that and anyway, when your brother’s men killed those first three they didn’t report any magical attacks.”

“I suppose not,” Jhonate admitted. “Very well, I shall talk to him. Nevertheless, I think you should ask him for a witch to come along with you just in case.”

“Thank you!” Vannya rushed over and wrapped Jhonate into a hug. “I appreciate it. I truly do!”

Jhonate tried to think of a reason why she shouldn’t just deliver a sharp knee to the girl’s stomach. In the end, she decided that such behavior was unseemly. She gently, but firmly extracted herself from the mage’s grip. “Now go. I will bring your proposal to him later today.”

“Okay,” Vannya said and strode to the door. She turned and waved cheerfully before letting herself out.

“What does she think I am, one of those twittering men that she can charm?” Jhonate mumbled. She laced up her boots and forced herself to wait a full five minutes before she walked out the door and made her way to her father’s conference room.

The door of the conference room stood out from the rather plain doorways of the rest of the palace. It was made of dead Jharro wood and the elves had carved it with a depiction of the day that the Roo-Tan dedicated themselves to the grove. A woman and an elf stood before a bearded, but faceless representation of the Prophet as he had them sign the accords.

Standing on either side of the door were two of the Protector’s guards. Usually they were posted just inside the room. The fact that they were waiting outside told her that her father thought this meeting with the ambassador was very important and didn’t want so much as a soft knock to interrupt him.

Jhonate projected a sense of purpose as she approached. She nodded at the guards. “Eldritch. Chandley.”

“Good morning, daughter of Xedrion,” they replied in unison.

“I have an important message for my father,” she announced. “And I must deliver it in person.”

“I am afraid it must wait,” Eldrich said, his tone firm but respectful. “He has told us that this meeting is not to be interrupted. You should come back later.”

Jhonate inclined her head at them, acknowledging that they were doing their jobs well. “Then I shall wait inside and speak with him after the meeting is over. I shall be silent until he is ready for me.”

The guards frowned. “I am sorry, daughter of Xedrion, but your father did not mention any exceptions.”

“Gentlemen, have you ever known my father to deny me anything?” she asked arching a single eyebrow at them.

They glanced at each other and shrugged. Everyone was well aware of the preferential treatment Jhonate received. Eldrich motioned her forward with his head and slowly opened the door on its well-greased and silent hinges.

The Protector’s conference room was wide and hexagonal with a domed ceiling. In the center of the room was a six-sided table where Xedrion and the Mer-Dan ambassador stood facing each other. Standing at her father’s shoulders were Hubrin, his second son, and his first wife, Herlda. Justan stood a short distance away, his hands held behind his back as he watched the conversation unfold. It was Xedrion’s preference that the speakers in any meeting stay on their feet. It helped discourage endless droning and kept everyone alert.

Justan’s eyes flickered Jhonate’s way and she heard his voice in her mind, What are you doing here?

She replied through the Jharro ring that was their connection to each other, I need to speak with my father. I came inside to wait.

My feet are sore, he complained. Three straight days of meetings constantly standing still. I would much rather have been training with you this morning.

A wise choice of words, Jhonate replied.

She looked around the room and saw her mother reclining on one of the wicker benches. She wore a flowing white dress that was covered in intricate green embroidery that matched the ribbons in her hair. Jhandra bin Tayl was a beautiful woman at any time, and she was particularly radiant when she was pregnant. Today, however, her face was marred by a scowl that would have rivaled one of Jhonate’s best. Jhonate’s youngest brother, Trincy, just ten-years-old held a feather in one hand that fluttered madly as he tried to keep his mother cool.

Jhonate walked quietly over to join her. She sat down on the bench next to her and bent to the woman’s ear. “What is bothering you, mother?”

“Incessant meetings,” she grumped quietly. “My back and hips are aching and this insolent brat inside me is kicking my bladder to pieces.”

“Is there anything I can do to help make you more comfortable?” Jhonate asked. Jhandra had pillows piled all around her and Trincy kept a pitcher of spiced banana punch nearby in case she became thirsty.

Trincy looked at Jhonate with bored and pleading eyes, but she shook her head gently. There was no getting him out of this assignment.

“You can walk over and lop that disgusting merman’s head off is what you can do,” Jhandra hissed. “Every expression on that pig’s face is either a veiled insult or a veiled threat. This whole treaty nonsense is a sham and your father knows it.” She winced and placed a hand over her belly. “Blasted pains.”

Jhonate looked up at the merman ambassador. He was listening to Xedrion’s speech with a look of long suffering that made Jhonate want to do just as her mother had requested. He wore silken robes of a wispy yellow and spoke with an aristocratic accent. His jowls jiggled as he talked.

The first time she had seen Elder Qelvyn, she had thought him a fat elf, but had quickly learned that he was retaining ocean water in his skin in order to keep himself moist. As a result, he always looked like he was sweating profusely. Her father found it a grave insult, insinuating that the Roo-Tan could not provide him with water. In effect, he was calling them a dry people.

“The Roo-Dan and the Merpeople have the right to gather together in any way they wish,” Xedrion was saying. “However I will not sign away our right to mass my people along the border in kind if I feel that you are likely to attack.”

“My dear Protector,” Elder Qelvyn said. “As I have attempted to reassure you from the moment we met, the members of the Mer-Dan Collective have given up all claims on the land that you inhabit. In addition, we have decided to let go of any past antagonism our peoples have felt toward the Roo-Tan. Why, your purpose is to protect the grove. What possible quarrel could we have with such a noble goal? After all, what good would it do us to harm that holy place?”

Jhonate resisted the urge to let out a derisive snort. It was true that the Roo-Dan’s enmity had mainly been with the Roo-Tan and had little to do with the grove, but it was a well-known fact that the merpeople in their hidden fortress of Pearl Cove had long wished to destroy the elves and take the grove as their own.

“Is that so?” Xedrion said.

Jhonate had once heard her father described as a rock of a man during his meetings, someone who rarely showed rage or amusement. Jhonate disagreed. Her father’s face was a constant ebb and flow of emotions. At the moment, what she saw was fury. He didn’t show it with a wrinkled brow or a curled lip. It was in his eyes.

The Protector of the Grove placed his hands on the table before him and leaned forward. “Then what is this I hear of a demon army that has invaded our country?”

The ambassador blinked as if in surprise, but Jhonate wasn’t convinced. “This is the first I have heard of such a group. Are you sure they are an army? Could they be refugees fleeing Alberri? I hear that there is quite the war going on in our neighboring country.”

“They are a group of demons thirteen hundred strong and led by a general. That sounds like an army to me,” Xedrion replied. He added, “I have it by a trustworthy source that this army has plans to join your forces and that their leader’s end goal is to conquer the Jharro Grove.”

The merman sputtered. “As-as I said before, the Mer-Dan Collective has no designs on the most holy Jharro Grove. We are well aware of the catastrophe that the grove’s destruction would bring. If this encroaching ‘army’ were to come to us seeking our aid in such an endeavor, the Mer-Dan Collective would attempt to dissuade them, of course.”

“Indeed,” Xedrion said, leaning back once more. “And would your ‘collective’ assist us if this army were to have such designs?”

Elder Qelvyn hesitated. “Well, Protector, as of the moment there is no agreement or treaty between our two peoples. That is why I am here; to broker such a deal. If there were a signed document ratifying our alliance, why of course we would fight alongside you, just as we would expect you to fight alongside us if we were under attack.”

“Do you have such a document prepared?” Xedrion asked.

“The scholars of Pearl Cove have met with the Roo-Dan leaders and have a tentative version compiled. Of course we would expect you to go over this treaty and we could then discuss any changes you feel necessary,” the merman replied with a wet smile.

Jhonate heard her mother scoff at the concept of Roo-Dan leaders. The Dan had always been a numerous, but disorganized group of independent villages, each ruled by chieftains or witches. It was obvious to Jhonate that the concept of this ‘collective’ was merely a politically acceptable way for the merpeople to subjugate the Roo-Dan people. Not that it particularly bothered her.

“I was not aware that you brought a prepared treaty with you,” Xedrion said.

Elder Qelvyn chuckled. “I have not. My arrival here has been exploratory in nature, my goal merely to see if you were amenable to a treaty between our two nations.” The smile left his face. “And I must say that so far your treatment of me has been less than cordial. I have been starved and harassed, accused of all sorts of treachery. All of my correspondence to and from my people has been opened and read. I have been confined to my quarters for the majority of my stay and the one time I was allowed a walk through the gardens I was stalked by a-a horrific beast. Is that the way you wish the relationship between our peoples to begin?”

The protector’s jaw flexed and Jhonate knew that her father was really angry now. “Elder Qelvyn. Our treatment of you has been more than gentle considering the many atrocities committed by both the Pearl Cove Merpeople and the Roo-Dan over the centuries. I would expect some gratitude that you were not simply slaughtered upon arrival.”

The ambassador’s jaw dropped in shock. “Why I never expected such rudeness from the Protector of the Grove himself.”

“Before you go and accuse me of rudeness, merman, perhaps you should look in the mirror at your own waterlogged face,” Xedrion snapped. Then he swallowed and continued in a level tone, “That being said, I do feel inclined to consider a treaty between our countries. An assurance that we should not expect attack would be a relief to our people.”

Elder Qelvyn composed himself quickly. “That is good news indeed. My people will be happy to hear it.”

“If you were to take such news back to your country what would be the next step?” Xedrion asked.

“Why, I am not exactly sure, but I assume that we would prepare our treaty document and contact you regarding a summit where we could discuss the details,” Qelvyn replied.

“Very well,” Xedrion replied. “That is my current intention. I will need to speak with the heads of all the Roo-Tan houses of course and we will draft a document of our own.”

The ambassador gave the Protector a short bow. “As we would expect.”

“I will have you taken back to your rooms where you can prepare for your return journey,” the Protector said. He raised a finger. “I may, however, wish to meet with you one last time before you leave.”

“Of course,” the merman said bowing briefly again before Xedrion’s guards escorted him away.

As soon as the door shut behind the ambassador, Herlda spoke up. “I do not like this.”

Xedrion’s first wife was as different from Jhonate’s mother as Jhonate was from Vannya. Herlda was a proud warrior and wore a dark hide breastplate. A Jharro sword hung at her waist and black ribbons were interwoven with the gray speckled hair in her braids.

Xedrion nodded and looked to his second oldest son.

Hubrin was a large and muscular man, nearly equal in stature to his father. The black ribbons in his hair matched his mother’s. “My first instinct says that they only seek this treaty to find a way to betray us. But what if that is not the case? Father, if an agreement can be struck and if they will keep to it, what a relief that would be.”

“Well said, son,” Xedrion replied. He looked to Justan. “What say you, Sir Edge?”

Justan glanced at Jhonate and cleared his throat. “Well, sir. I cannot say that I have a good read of the collective’s true intentions towards your people, but what Elder Qelvyn said is correct. What good would it do them to attack the grove? There is nothing to be gained there.”

Jhonate stood. “They have attacked in the past! Many people see the Jharro Grove as a resource that can be harvested, even if it isn’t completely destroyed.”

Xedrion’s glare was piercing. “Did I ask for your input, Jhonate?”

Jhonate’s cheeks colored. “No, sir,” she said and sat back down.

Her father looked back to Justan, “Continue, Sir Edge.”

Justan nodded, sending Jhonate an apologetic glance. “I was examining your maps earlier, Protector, and I observed that the current territory occupied by this proposed nation covers the coastline down to the swamps and also the land northward between here and The Kingdom of Benador.”

“Yes. This new nation would effectively hem us in,” Hubrin said,

“Actually, tactically speaking, this could be beneficial,” Justan replied. “Our main goal is to protect the grove from invasion. In the past, the Roo-Dan villages were little deterrent to an army invading from the north or coming in by ship. But as a fortified nation, this Mer-Dan Collective would be an effective barrier against attack from those directions. We already have the barriers of the mountains to the west and the troll swamps to our south. The addition of this new ally would mean we’d be insulated in all directions.”

Jhonate’s shoulders relaxed slightly. Justan had accorded himself quite well. This was exactly the kind of tactical intelligence she had hoped he would display.

Xedrion nodded. “Excellent points, Sir Edge. I will take them into account when I meet with the houses this evening.” He looked at Herlda and Hubrin, who were frowning thoughtfully. “We will adjourn for now and reconvene after dinner.”

“Can I go too, Father?” Trincy complained.

Jhandra rolled her eyes. “Fine, abandon your mother.”

Xedrion smiled and nodded. “Go on. Report to your teachers.”

“Thanks, Father!” Trincy said and ran for the door, passing up Herlda and Hubrin on his way out.

Jhonate stood again. “Father, I have something to discuss with you.”

“Indeed?” Xedrion said. “Is this why you skulked in when you clearly were not invited?”

Jhonate met his level gaze. “Please excuse me. I was not aware that my presence would be so unwanted.”

Xedrion pointed at her. “We will go over that matter shortly. In the meantime, what did you need to discuss?”

“I received a visit by Mage Vannya today,” Jhonate replied.

“Oh,” Xedrion said, looking unsettled.

“She had discovered some intriguing facts about those troll creatures that we have been coming across. She would like to report her findings and has a request to make, but has had difficulty getting in to see you. Is there a reason that you do not wish to speak with her?”

Xedrion sighed and glanced over at Jhandra. “The difficulty with that girl is that she is just too pretty. Do you not think so, Sir Edge?”

Justan nearly choked and his eyes darted briefly at Jhonate. “Uh, that has been said about her, sir.”

To Jhonate’s further irritation Xedrion said, “Indeed. I do not see how speaking with her personally would be productive.”

“What he means is that he sees her and he starts thinking about marrying again,” Jhandra said with a shake of her head.

“And that is the last thing I need to be thinking about at the moment with a possible war on our hands,” Xedrion agreed.

“Just a moment father,” Jhonate said, her eyes as wide as Justan’s. “You are thinking of marriage with her?”

Jhandra laughed. “Of course not! She is an outsider and an elemental magic user of all things. Can you imagine the furor that would erupt if he suggested such a thing? I was speaking in a generality. Pretty girls always get your father thinking.”

Xedrion cleared his throat. “Would you care to tell me what she has discovered, Jhonate?”

Frowning, Jhonate told them what Vannya had explained to her earlier. Then she told them about the mage’s request. “I explained to her that such a trip would be too dangerous and that you were unlikely to support it,” she said.

“Sending her into the troll swamps would seem a bit foolhardy,” Jhandra agreed.

“Actually, sir,” Justan said. “Vannya’s idea isn’t a bad one. We have no idea what kind of threat these troll things are. Considering everything else that you are dealing with, it probably isn’t a bad idea to send her out. I would be willing to send Deathclaw with her as an escort. He has been feeling pretty cooped up here in the city.”

“I appreciate the offer, but I have a better solution,” Xedrion replied. “I believe I will send her to see Old Stolz down on the swamp’s edge.”

“Stolz?” Justan said and Jhonate could read enough of his emotions through the ring to know that the name was familiar to him, though he couldn’t quite place it.

“Is he that old hermit?” Jhonate said.

“He is,” Jhandra replied. “And I think he is crazy no matter how smart your father thinks he is.”

“Stolz is a troll expert,” Xedrion corrected her. “He has been studying the Troll Swamps for decades trying to find a way for our people to reclaim it.”

“A lost cause,” Jhandra said.

“Perhaps,” Xedrion acknowledged. The Roo-Tan had spent many centuries trying to fight back the menaces of the swamp before finally understanding that they didn’t have the means to accomplish it. “But of all of us, he is the one most likely to know about these creatures and perhaps be able to give this mage a better idea of whether or not they are a threat to our people. Jhonate, tell her that we will put together an expedition to accompany her there. With everything else we are dealing with I am reluctant to commit too many resources.”

“I have some suggestions in that regard,” Justan said. “I can put together a list of names.”

Xedrion gave him a grateful nod. “Do so. And now, if you do not mind, I would like to address something with my daughter alone.”

“Oh. Of course, sir,” Justan said. He looked at Jhonate. “I’ll be waiting at the archery range.”

Jhonate watched him leave, then turned on Xedrion before he could begin. “Father why you have not been inviting me to these meetings?”

Xedrion looked to his wife. “Did I not announce my intention to address something first?”

Jhandra shrugged. “She is Jhonate.”

“Father, do not avoid the question. I had been attending all your planning meetings for weeks. Why do you suddenly stop inviting me? Have I not been useful to you in the past?”

“Yes, your input has been useful, even if you are a bit hot-headed,” he admitted.

“Then why leave me out?” she asked. “Especially since you have been letting Sir Edge attend.”

Xedrion smiled and patted her fondly on the shoulder. “You, dear daughter, need to allow your betrothed to spend some time with me without your presence.”

She frowned. That’s what this was about? “And why is that?”

“How can he take proper measure of the man when you keep interfering?” Jhandra asked.

She blinked at her mother, then looked back at her father. “How do I interfere? I let him say what he wishes. I do not correct him.”

“Jhonate, your very presence in the room changes his behavior,” Xedrion replied. “When you are watching him, he stands straighter. He chooses his words more carefully.”

“This is a problem?” That sounded optimal to her.

“One of the reasons I have always found Hilt’s presence so useful is his tendency to be at ease in tense situations,” Xedrion explained. “He often tells me things that my other advisors would be reluctant to say. Your Sir Edge has many of these same qualities, but those benefits are erased once you enter the room.”

Jhonate’s brow tightened as his words sank in. Did she really make Justan so nervous? “He does not have this problem when we are alone.”

Xedrion chuckled and reached around her with one arm, giving her a fatherly squeeze. “Do not worry yourself. Men always watch themselves around women they are trying to impress. The fact that he is trying to impress me as well merely amplifies it. Once you are married this will change. Especially once you allow yourself to relax around him.”

“Allow myself to relax? I . . .” She turned in her father’s arm, her eyes wide. “You said ‘once you are married’. Does this mean you have decided to allow it?”

He released her and folded his arms. “I . . . suppose that I have come to terms with your betrothal.”

“No. You said ‘married’,” Jhonate replied with a smile.

“He did,” Jhandra agreed.

Xedrion couldn’t help but smile back. “Very well. I did.”

Jhonate’s smile grew wider and she pointed at her father. “You like him.”

“I do,” he admitted. “Do you realize how long it has been since I have seen you smile?”

“That is because you have not seen me alone with Edge very often,” she replied.

Her mother snorted and Xedrion’s smile faded a bit while he contemplated her meaning.

“You must tell him that you approve,” Jhonate said excitedly. She embraced him.  “Stay here, father, and do not change your mind. When I come back I expect you to tell him of your approval.”

“Hurry, then,” he replied with a chuckle.

“Do not let him back out,” Jhonate told her mother. Jhandra gave her an assuring nod and Jhonate rushed through the Jharro wood door.

To her surprise, she found Justan standing right outside the door. He was talking to Relf, the messenger.

“Surely that’s not so bad,” Justan was saying. “I’m certain she’ll show up soon.”

Relf winced. “I do not know about that, sir.”

“What is it?” Jhonate asked.

“It’s Tarah Woodblade,” Justan said. “She isn’t in her assigned quarters and her friends aren’t sure where she’s gone. Relf is concerned.”

Relf nodded. “Your father sent me to retrieve her. He has a task he’d like her to complete. ”

“It was my idea, actually,” Justan told Jhonate. “I figured she could use her tracking magic to tell us what that merman ambassador is really planning. That way your father will have a better picture of what he is up against before he speaks to the houses.”

“Actually, Sir,” said the messenger hesitantly. “The thing I’ve been trying to tell you is that I may have an idea where she has gone.” He licked his lips. “And the Protector is not going to like it.”

Chapter Ten

Tarah pushed her way through the thick jungle undergrowth, her every sense focused on the terrain around her. She had been in this country for a few weeks now, but she still wasn’t comfortable with the environment here. She was used to the thorny vines and brambles and poison oak of Dremaldria, but she didn’t know all the perils of Malaroo yet. She used every bit of plant and animal lore that she knew, but still found herself surprised from time to time.

“Aww, come on, Tarah,” said her papa. Gad the Brawler, the burly berserker turned woodsman, strode through the vegetation with practiced ease. He was wearing his familiar trail garb; a loose brown shirt up top and rugged leather pants below, his cuffs tucked into his boots. He had a bow and quiver slung over his shoulders. His sword, the Ramsetter, was nowhere to be seen. “Don’t get caught up on the small stuff. You’re a woodsman through and through. I didn’t raise no daughter that couldn’t take two steps without checking her boots.”

“Ain’t just avoiding. I’m learning,” Tarah said, bending down to take a closer look at a wide mushroom.

The mushroom was white on top, but had a scarlet underbelly. She felt around underneath it and her fingers brushed the tracks of a mouse that had sheltered underneath the mushroom. A tiny series of memories entered her mind. The mouse hadn’t seen the mushroom as food, but it hadn’t been wary of it either. It might be edible. She cut a small piece of the mushroom free and tucked it into a pouch to test further later.

“The more I know about this place, the more safe I can keep my friends,” she said. “They depend on me.”

She had learned her lesson about Malaroo’s dangers early on. During their first week in the country, Cletus had picked up a colorful frog that had given him a wicked swelling rash. Not long after that, Djeri had received a painful bite from a large spider that had hidden in a bunch of bananas. Tarah had treated the wound, but if he hadn’t been a dwarf, the poison could have proven fatal.

“Well, I have always taught you diligence,” Gad said in approval. “But we’re heading someplace exciting and there’s no need to go slow. Why don’t we just take one of the trails? They’re well-worn and danger-free.”

“They also tend to contain people that we’ll have to avoid,” Tarah replied. “We’re not supposed to be here, remember?”

“Don’t be silly, girl,” Gad said. “Your rogue horse friend will keep us hidden from people. We could mess around. We could yell and they wouldn’t even hear us.”

Tarah froze for a moment, hearing those words come out of her papa’s mouth. It was as if a spell had been broken. She had been talking to him like he was really there. This was happening more and more often and the scariest part was that Esmine was getting better at imitating her papa and grampa. Their voices had stopped echoing inside her mind and had begun to sound as if they were standing right next to her.

Tarah frowned. “I’ve asked you before to stop that Esmine. It’s bad enough that you feel you have to wear his face when you’re talking to me. I don’t want you actually pretending to be my papa.”

“Aww! Don’t spoil the fun, Tarah!” Gad the Brawler said, sounding and acting every bit like he had in life. “Why trudge around your old memories of me, looking at them with sadness? Enjoy this time. We’re out of that stuffy palace with its empty rooms and its white walls. We’re Tarah and her papa on a new woodlands adventure!”

Come, Tarah, Esmine urged, this time using her own mental voice, something that had become more and more rare. Play with me.

“Let’s do something different then,” Tarah said, trying to be accomodating. “This game makes me uncomfortable.”

You always make demands of me. Esmine’s reply was bitter in a way that Tarah hadn’t heard from her before. Do what I want for once!

“Hey, calm down. I’m not saying I won’t play,” Tarah said. She thought she understood. Esmine was bored. “It can even be the same game. Just appear as yourself. Not my papa.”

But I don’t want to be me. I want to do this for you, Esmine insisted, completely unaware of the way she was contradicting herself. You miss your papa. This way you can spend time with him.

“Come on, Tarah. Like when you were little,” echoed her papa pleadingly.

The whole thing was a little odd. Tarah sighed. Then again, maybe it didn’t matter. This was what Esmine wanted. Why not act out her fantasy? After all, Tarah had spent years pretending her papa hadn’t died. Would it really hurt anything to do so once again?

Tarah ignored the feeling of wrongness in her gut and let a smile appear on her face. “Okay, a new adventure. But papa, where are we going?”

“Oh, baby girl we are going someplace special.” Gad came to her side and threw an arm around her shoulders. Tarah could barely feel it. Esmine still had trouble fooling the sense of touch with her illusions. But everything else was so real, from the look in his eye to the not quite pleasant smell of his morning breath that she let herself believe. “It’s a place so big, so magical, yet few ever get to see it.”

“The Jharro Grove?” she asked.

He gave her an impressed look. “You heard of it? Why I’ll be. Was it in one of your mama’s books?”

“Papa, of course I’ve heard of it. I’m here to keep that gnome from conquering it,” Tarah replied.

“I got no idea what you’re talking about, Tarah,” Gad said taking a step back from her. “But I’m gonna show it to you anyway. Wait till you see it. It’s so peaceful there.”

He started off into the trees and she followed. “What’re you saying, papa? You been there before?”

He didn’t reply to the question directly, but he glanced back over his shoulder at her, his expression excited. “The trees are huge, maybe not the tallest I’ve seen, but they are the widest. And they’re alive. Not in the way a normal tree’s alive and not alive like you or me, but more than that. They’re ancient and . . .” He stopped for a moment. “Wait, you smell that?”

Tarah paused along with him. There was something different in the air, an almost minty scent that triggered a fond memory in her mind. “Yeah, it kind of reminds me of the tea that old Ollie used to drink in his bookstore. The smell of it used to fill the place.”

“Oh, this isn’t tea, baby girl,” he said. “That’s the smell of the grove. Come on. Surely it can’t be too much farther.”

“Surely?” she said teasingly. “But, papa, I thought you knew where you were going.”

“Of course I know. It’s just been a long time. I . . .” His voice trailed off and he cleared his throat. Tarah realized that, though her papa had certainly not been here before, Esmine had. “Keep on.”

The minty smell grew stronger and Tarah began to feel light headed. Her legs began to wobble. “I feel strange.”

“It’s the magic of the grove,” Gad said. “Even though you can’t see the trees yet, the life of the place has reached this far. Look around you.”

The plants around her were lush and green without a trace of rot and the soil was thick and black. Tarah crouched down and ran her fingers through it. There was magic there. And a history. Her magic was trying to bring memories out of the soil, but couldn’t hold onto anything specific. It had to be elven homeland. Of course, that made sense. Elves tended the grove and this soil was full of their life essence. Wow, was she feeling loopy.

Tarah sat down and put her head in her hands. A giggle burst from her lips. She felt drunk. That was not a good state to be in when sneaking into one of the most heavily guarded places in the known lands.

“I don’t know that we should keep going,” she said.

“I know what you’re feeling,” Gad said, crouching next to her. “It’s just your first time here. Don’t worry. Your body will get used to it in a while.” He stood and held out his hand. “Come on. Get up.”

She reached out and he yanked his hand out of the way at the last moment, smiling. “You still falling for that one, Tarah? A girl of mine can stand on her own.”

She laughed and climbed to her feet. Gad used to do that all the time. Especially if she tripped over something. “You just did that because you know that your hand isn’t really there.”

“You use whatever excuse you want,” he replied. “Truth is, you’re just not as fast as your papa.”

He headed deeper into the forest and she followed. The ground sloped downward quite steeply in places. It seemed to Tarah as if they were walking down the sides of a huge bowl.

The minty smell only deepened as did the heady feel of magic until the air felt as thick as water. At first, she felt unsteady on her feet, but as her papa had predicted, she became used to that intense feeling of life. Then she saw her first Jharro tree. She forgot about anything else and stared in open wonder.

Her papa was right. The trees were enormous. That was the first thought that came into her mind. They were so thick!  She imagined that she could put at least ten of the thickest trees she had ever seen side-by-side and still not be as wide. Their huge silvery roots covered every inch of the forest floor, intertwining with one another like a mass of still tentacles.

She looked from the roots up to the thick branches of the trees. They arced overhead, forming a nearly impenetrable canopy of waxy leaves with a light blue underbelly. The sparse rays of light that did penetrate the leaves filled the entire grove with blue and silver tinted light.

“This place is . . .” The first word that came to her head was holy but she didn’t say it. Tarah wasn’t a religious person. Superstitious at times, maybe. But as a person who had lived her life in the woods, this was the closest thing to heaven that she could imagine.

“We shouldn’t be here,” she thought, suddenly feeling guilty for her subterfuge.

“What are you talking about, Tarah?” her papa asked. He was taking in the majesty of the grove with a wide smile, his arms spread open. “Every person in the world should be in this place at least once in their lives. Can you imagine how much an experience like this would change people?”

Tarah understood what he meant. The weighty feeling of the place; the awe that would fall over anyone that stood here. Many would change their perception of nature. Some of them would never want to leave . . . Her brow knit in concern. Others would want to take some of it with them. There would even be people that would hate it. They would see this place of perfect grandeur and want to burn it to the ground.

“No, papa. This isn’t a place for everyone,” she said.

She saw movement among the massive roots of the trees. At first she thought that the trees were somehow moving their roots themselves, but then she saw that there were people running on top of these roots.

They were elves. But unlike the elves she knew, these were small, similar in height to dwarves, but dark-skinned and bald headed. As they ran, the roots of the grove shifted, forming pathways for them to take. Further up the trees she saw the smooth bark ripple in places as more of these elves rode knots along the surface of the trunks.

“We should go,” she said, taking a step back. “We weren’t invited.”

“Nonsense, Tarah. If anyone deserves to be in this place, it is you,” Gad said. He looked at the elves. “Don’t worry. They can’t see you. They can’t hear you. Let’s go a little deeper in.”

Tarah had her doubts about that statement. From the little she knew about the ancient elves that cared for this place, they had a history steeped in magic. Chances are they knew a thing or two about illusion. “But those roots are huge. Most of ‘em are thicker than I am tall. They might move where the elves want ‘em to, but they won’t move for me.”

He laughed. “Tarah, don’t belittle all that I taught you. You’re a woodsman. These are trees. You’ll find a way around.”

Tarah’s papa stepped out onto the gray surface of the closest Jharro root, a thick one that plunged into the ground nearby. He began walking along the top of it as it curved gently up towards the trunk of the tree. He waved at her to follow.

Tarah forced away the feeling of guilt that welled within her and followed him. The surface of the root had a slightly spongy feel and made traction easy. Her eyes wide and taking in the immensity of the place, she continued until she reached a point where the root of another tree overlapped the one she was on. It was taller than her head and the surface was so smooth that it didn’t look easy to climb.

A sharp whistle blew to her right and Tarah looked over to see her papa standing on another root not too far away. He waved her over. “Just jump. You can make it, baby girl.”

“You stopped calling me baby girl when I was ten,” Tarah reminded him.

“I know. When you kept begging me to stop,” he said. “But I’m gonna start it up again anyway because I like it. Now jump.”

Tarah narrowed her eyes at him and used the butt of her staff to help propel her to the other root. This one curved around and over the top of the root that had blocked her path. She hiked up it and when she reached its apex, she saw that the shape of the root changed. The top of it was flat and had squeezed tightly together with a series of other roots to form a pathway.

“See, Tarah? Easy,” said Gad the Brawler, smiling. He began to take a step forward, but paused and held up a finger. “Hold on a second, baby girl. Don’t move.”

Tarah stopped and two elves jumped down from a root up above, landing on the pathway right next to her. They were females and wore armor that seemed to be made of living wood that flexed and moved with their bodies. To Tarah’s relief, they didn’t give her a second glance, but made odd clicking and whistling noises to each other and kept on running.

At least she knew Esmine’s magic really did work on them. That was a bit of a relief. “What did they see?” she wondered.

“Oh as far as they were concerned, you were just another bulge in the root,” Gad said. “Let’s keep going.”

Tarah followed her papa as he jogged down the pathway formed by the roots. He talked to her excitedly, pointing out wonders. One of them was a small garden formed in the side of one of the Jharro trunks. The elves had formed the wood into terraced beds and filled them with soil. The plants inside were lush and full of fruit. She watched one elf pick a white strawberry the size of her fist.

“Oh, you need to pick you one of those,” her papa urged. “Let’s go. I see a big one.”

“No, papa,” she replied. Even if she was able to make her way there over the enormous tangle of roots to get to that garden, there was woodsman etiquette to consider. It was bad enough that she was trespassing. You don’t just eat out of someone else’s garden. “Tarah Woodblade is no thief.”

“Bah!” he said and with a series of jumps and climbs, some of them Tarah was sure were impossible for her father to truly make, Gad made his way to the elf garden. He picked one of the berries and took a bite, showing it to her as he chewed. The flesh inside was dark pink and juicy. “It’s not stealing when they have so many.”

“Now that sounds more like something Grampa Rolf would say.” She folded her arms, a frown forming on her face. Gad had been the one to teach her that taking someone else’s food was wrong. He had also told her about elves and their homeland.

Esmine should have known that. The rogue horse spent all her spare time sifting through Tarah’s memories, yet she was getting a lot of it wrong. Gad would never have entered elf land without their permission and he most certainly wouldn’t have stolen their food.

“Papa, you were the one who taught me how sensitive elves are about the things that grow in their soil. ‘If you ask, they may give some to you as a gift, but if you take it without permission, you make yourself their enemy.’ That’s what you taught me.”

“Good point,” her papa said and suddenly he disappeared, replaced by Grampa Rolf. The old man gave her an impish smile and took another bite of the oversized fruit. “This is a game with your Grampa Rolf now. Get over here and try some. Tarah Woodblade isn’t scared of a little adventure.”

Her frown deepened. That wasn’t much like Grampa Rolf either. He wasn’t the type to go out on adventures. He was a businessman. If Rolf went anywhere it was in search of money. Also, if he were to steal food it would be because he was starving. He wouldn’t do it just for the fun of it.

No, Esmine was the one who liked to sneak about. Esmine was the one that would steal food because it was a challenge. Pretending that this was a game for Tarah’s benefit was just another way for the rogue horse to relieve her boredom.

“I don’t like this game, Esmine,” Tarah said. What had she been thinking, agreeing to this in the first place? This was only going to get her and possibly her friends back in the city in a great deal of trouble. “Let’s return back to the palace before they realize I’m gone.”

“But I like this place,” Rolf said petulantly, not even trying to act like himself anymore. “I want to stay. Just a bit longer? Tarah Woodblade wouldn’t deny some fun to her best friend, would she?”

“We’re leaving,” Tarah said. She turned to leave, but one of the roots rose up in front of her, blocking her path. “Esmine. This isn’t funny.”

“Stay and play with me,” Rolf insisted.

“You’re not supposed to use your magic on me, Esmine,” Tarah said angrily.

She walked right at the root, wincing as she stepped face first into it. For a moment she felt the solid mass of it pressing against her nose and she thought she had made a mistake, but the illusion dissipated. The pathway in front of her was clear again.

Rolf appeared in front of her, barring her way. “I’m tired of being your servant. It’s time you obeyed me for a change.”

Tarah’s jaw dropped. Esmine had never acted this way before. Why now? “That isn’t how this works.”

“You owe this to me.”  Rolf’s skin grew pale, his cheeks sallow and his eye sockets dark. He was aging quickly like he had in the last days before he had died. Tarah had stayed at his side, helpless to do anything. He reached one emaciated arm towards her. “I was free. For a thousand years I roamed anywhere I wanted. I did anything I wanted. Until you let me be captured.”

“No,” said Tarah, fighting the lump that rose in her throat. Why was Esmine doing this? Why was she dredging up such an awful memory?

“Your fault-.” Rolf let out a ragged gasp and stopped breathing. The Rolf that stood before her was a corpse now; his eyes gray and lifeless. His skin dried out and his lips pulled back from his yellowed teeth until his face was a withered rictus of death. “You let me die. You took my freedom. You owe me.”

“Stop it!” Tarah shouted, her voice filled with pain and horror.

“I can make you stay.” The corpse lurched forward.

She raised a trembling hand and clamped it over her eyes so that she wouldn’t see that terrible illusion anymore. “Esmine . . . Why?”

“Tarah Woodblade hides now?” The voice came from next to her ear as if the person was standing right next to her. But this time it wasn’t Grampa Rolf’s voice or even her papa’s. It was the voice of the moonrat head man. She could feel his hot breath on her ear. “Yoouuu caaan’t hiiide from meee.”

Tarah swung her staff, striking something solid. She opened her eyes and saw that she had simply hit the side of a root. She spun around, looking for the next illusion, but nothing was there.

Something wet slithered across the back of her neck. “Plaaay.”

“No!” Tarah shouted. She swung back her arm and threw the staff as hard as she could. It bounced and clattered across several roots before falling between two of them and disappearing from view.

Shuddering, she pulled her papa’s bow off of her shoulder and clutched it tight to her chest. Her father’s memories were gone from its surface, but he had made it with his own hands. This was something real that could bring her comfort.

“Why did you do that?” asked Grampa Rolf. He looked like his healthy self again and stood close to the place where she had thrown the staff. He was peering down between the roots. “Now you’ll just have to go and pick me up again.”

“No,” Tarah said. “Not if you’re gonna torture me like that, Esmine. I’ll just leave you there.”

“To be found by elves? These old wrinkly ones?” Rolf shook his head. “Besides, you wouldn’t leave me here. We’re best friends. You told me so.”

“A best friend wouldn’t do what you were just doing to me,” Tarah said. She turned to walk away.

“I won’t let you leave,” he said.

She put the bow back over her shoulder and started walking.

“Have you forgotten my range?” Now Rolf was in front of her, walking backwards, keeping her pace while facing her. “I won’t let you get far. My illusions will keep you from getting away.”

“You can’t stop me,” she snapped. “I’m Tarah Woodblade. I know how to find my way anywhere. I’ve traveled mountains. I’ve travelled forests. I’ve travelled maze-like deserts that-.”

“And we’re back where we started,” he replied smugly.

Tarah realized that he was right. Once again she was standing across from that elf garden. Somehow he had turned her around. When had that happened?

He smiled at her confusion and pointed into the roots below. “Now go pick me up.”

“I won’t. I don’t care how long I have to keep walking in circles I will eventually figure it out and I will get away,” she promised. “You know I will.”

His eyes narrowed at her. “I have other ways of forcing you to do what I want. I could stop making you invisible for instance. I could make it appear like you were jumping up and down and shouting insults at every elf around us.”

She swallowed. “You wouldn’t.”

“And I could make you appear to be naked as you did it,” he added.

Tarah’s eyes bulged as she tried to think of a way out of the situation. Finally she forced herself to calm down. “This is crazy, Esmine. Why are we even having this conversation? You’re right. I can’t throw you away now. You are my friend and I went through too much to try to help you.”

Rolf smiled. “I knew you would listen.”

“I will not pick you back up without some conditions, though,” she added. “You need to stop appearing to me as my papa or grampa. I just can’t handle that anymore. Not after today.”

Esmine didn’t answer, so she continued. “In turn, I will try to be more accommodating to you and find time to play with you. But I can’t have you using your magic to fool me. I can’t live that way.”

Rolf cocked his head at her for a moment, then raised a finger. “Counter offer.” Suddenly he was gone. In his place was Tarah’s Mother. “I will use this form instead. What do you think, sweetheart?” Her voice had the beautiful alto tone that Tarah remembered. “She died when you were so young. Your memories of her are old and faded, but I can fill in the gaps with my own personality all the better.”

Tarah turned and ran, choking back tears. It was too much. She had to get away. It was the only way she could stay sane.

Knowing that Esmine would try to turn her around again, Tarah jumped down from the root she was on. She landed on a path below and headed down it, focusing all of her knowledge and training on escape.

Tarah moved from root-to-root as best as she could, jumping and climbing. She constantly glanced upward, trying to keep several reference points in mind. The wide leaves of the Jharro trees mostly hid the sun, but she was fairly confident that she was heading in the right direction.

To her relief Esmine didn’t call out after her. No phantoms appeared to torment her and after the first few panicked minutes, Tarah began to think things through. She slowed down. Was she really leaving Esmine and the staff Rolf had given her behind?

Why had this happened? Sure, Esmine had been acting more stubborn lately, but everything had been fine earlier that day. The rogue horse’s suggestion of escape had seemed like an exciting diversion. What had changed since then?

What Tarah really wanted right then was Djeri. The dwarf would hold her and she could explain everything that happened. He would listen and use that ability he had to see through things and he would tell her exactly what to do.

Tarah stopped walking and finally let the tears stream down her face. She sat down on the root and put her head in her hands. Is this what she had become? After everything she had been through in the last few months, Tarah Woodblade was losing control and blubbering? Pining after a man? She sighed and put her hand down beside her, intending to climb to her feet.

Her palm sunk into the wood.

Suddenly, everything fell away. The roots, the air, even her body disappeared until Tarah’s thoughts were all alone in a soft pink haze. She felt an enormous sense of pressure. It was as if a mountain surrounded her, the mass of it crushing her mind. Then she understood. It wasn’t a mountain. It was a tree.

Her magic had connected to the spirit of this Jharro tree and it was trying to show her the enormity of its history. Tarah had fractions of a second before the sheer weight of it destroyed her. She did the only thing she could. She opened herself up to it.

Centuries of information poured through her mind so fast that she couldn’t retain it all. She could only catch glimpses. Tarah saw the tree from its start as a seedling. It was planted by a man with a beard and kind eyes. Then it was a sapling and dark-skinned elves played around it. It became much larger and was cared for by elves. They moved in and out of its flesh and made small requests of it. Eventually it was fully grown. Its roots intertwined with the others, and it was mature enough to take part of the grove’s burden.

The tree’s voice then rose to join the others. The Jharro trees generated a chorus of magical energy, something Tarah couldn’t quite comprehend. But the song was beautiful and it shone forth like a beacon of sound and light and life that formed a barrier, keeping out something dark and horrible; a sickness of some kind that would overcome the known lands.

The trees remained so focused on their task that they were completely defenseless. They depended on the elves that cared for them and now the humans that helped the elves. There had been many wars over the years. Some of the trees had been destroyed and others had lost their voice. Currently, the song of the trees was barely strong enough to keep the barrier in place. There was hope, though, because a new orchard of saplings were growing to take their place.

The weight of the tree’s memories faded until Tarah’s thoughts once again floated in a soft pink haze. Then the tree spoke to her. It didn’t use words, but spoke more in emotion. It asked her a question. Would she join the ranks of the tree’s caretakers? Would she protect the tree so that it could continue to protect the world?

The question hung in Tarah’s mind, but she didn’t answer right away. Not because it was a difficult decision. Now that she understood the importance of the trees, there was no greater calling that she could think of. The reason she hesitated was because she had other tasks to complete. And what of Djeri? Would she have to stay in Malaroo if she said yes?

Tarah asked the tree these questions, but received no reply. The tree couldn’t comprehend such small and petty thoughts. Its gaze was eternal. It simply repeated the question and Tarah said, Yes.

There was a warm feeling of acceptance from the tree and its thoughts began to fade from Tarah’s mind. Suddenly there was a great lurch. The pink blinked away to black.

Tarah cried out in pain as her mind was forcibly torn from the tree. Her arm was wrenched to the side. Tarah opened her eyes and looked into a face that was all at once dark and beautiful and angry. It was a female elf. The lower half of her body was submerged in the wood of the tree and she had Tarah’s wrist clenched in one powerful hand.

Chapter Eleven

“Intruder,” the dark-skinned elf said in an oddly accented voice. “Rapist!”

“R-rape?” Tarah was still sitting cross-legged on the root and tried to pull her hand out of the elf’s grip, but didn’t have the leverage. “I did nothing like that.”

“You brought evil into this grove.” The elf snarled and clicked a few words that Tarah didn’t understand and added, “You used filthy magic to touch the soul of my tree!”

“I didn’t use my magic on purpose,” Tarah replied. “It just happened.”

The elf slowly rose out of the wood until she was standing on top of the root, her body encased in living Jharro armor. She pulled Tarah to her knees and raised her other arm, pointing a staff at Tarah’s face. The end of the staff narrowed, forming a spear-like tip. “The penalty for such a violation is death!”

“Nope,” Tarah said. She twisted her body, yanking the elf forward. The elf’s weapon gouged her armor, but Tarah’s left fist caught the elf woman square in the nose.

The elf’s head snapped back. She gasped in surprise. Tarah tore her hand out of the elf’s grip and ran. She knew an escape was unlikely. The elf knew the grove and Tarah had seen that she could control the roots at will. Her only hope was that Esmine was still trying to protect her.

Tarah put all she had into the run, hoping that her longer legs would give her an advantage but she heard the elf woman click angrily close behind her. Blast, she was fast. Then Tarah felt the root pathway shift under her feet. Grimacing, she jumped off of the root, throwing herself over a wide gap towards the next closest root. Her arms were outstretched as she struck the root with her chest. She clutched at the smooth surface, hoping not to slide off.

Her hand sank into the wood and she realized that this root was from a different tree.

“No!” she cried, but it was too late. Everything fell away once more. She was floating in a pink haze, the weight of thousands of years of memories weighing on her. She had no choice but to open herself up to it once again, but this tree was not as gentle as the first.

The memories flooded through her in a torrent and Tarah feared that she might lose herself. This tree was older. It had been there in the beginning of the grove, before the trees had a purpose. Then the sickness had ravaged the world. The messenger had come and had shown the trees how to sing.

This tree had seen war and been damaged by it. This tree had lost many of its brethren. It was tired. Yet still it sang on, encouraged by the growth of new saplings. Sometime soon it would be able to rest.

The memories stopped, leaving Tarah’s mind battered and weak. Then it asked her the same question as the previous tree, though it asked in a slightly bored fashion. Would she, the human child, protect it from the ravages of mortal men and beasts so that it could continue its endless duty to protect the world?

Uh, I already said yes to the other tree, Tarah replied.

It asked again. In these, the final days of its weary existence, would she use her puny powers to keep its roots free from the fires and axes of mortal kind?

Tarah didn’t understand the etiquette with making promises of this sort. She also didn’t particularly like this one’s attitude, but she supposed that after a life that long it deserved some concessions. Yes.

The tree accepted her promise and Tarah felt a warmth settle over her. Then, once again, she was torn free of her connection from the tree. This time it was caused by the foot of the furious elf woman as she kicked Tarah in the face, knocking her free from the root she was so desperately holding onto.

Tarah fell, disoriented as she rebounded off of two more roots before landing square on her back. The impact of the landing knocked the wind out of her. Several arrows, jarred loose from her quiver along the way, clattered around her.

She was lying on a long, but narrow pathway between two massive roots. The elf hadn’t waited. She was already jumping down after her.

Tarah rolled to her knees and tried to stand, but the combination of lack of air and mental fatigue slowed her down. The elf woman landed in front of her and sent a stiff kick into Tarah’s chest, launching her back to the ground.

“You defile another tree?” snarled the elf, looking all the more furious because of the blood that dripped from her nose. She drew back her staff preparing to launch it like a spear.

Tarah gasped, and raised her arms defensively, fairly sure that her armor wouldn’t stop a direct strike from that close. “No defiling! I just promised the tree I would-!”

The elf threw.

Tarah closed her eyes. She heard the meaty thud as the spear struck, but felt no pain. A moment went by and she opened one eye to see that a section of the root next to her had transformed, extending to form a protective shield over her body. The pointed tip of the Jharro weapon had pierced the wood, but had been stopped an inch from her chest.

The elf peered around the edge of the shield. “What is this? You corrupt even one of the eldest?”

Tarah realized that the root had belonged to the tree she had just finished talking to. “No!” she said, scrambling backwards. She climbed to her feet. “He did that on his own. I was trying to tell you before you just tried to kill me. I promised this cranky old tree I would protect him. I guess he was protecting me back.”

The elf wrenched her spear out of the wood. She shifted her grip to the bottom of the weapon and the length of the shaft thinned, forming a narrow blade. Her grip was strange, but she wielded it like a longsword. “You have no right.”

“Stop, Tolynn!”

The voice was male and carried a note of command so powerful that Tarah flinched. The elf woman bared her teeth and let out a series of clicks and whistles that Tarah did not understand, but she did not continue her attack. The wall of roots that surrounded them shifted, lifting up and forming a tunnel-like path. Tarah looked inside and saw a man approaching.

He didn’t look all that impressive. He had short brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard and wore a set of worn traveler’s clothes. In his hands he carried Esmine’s staff.

Walking behind him was a beast that made Tarah’s jaw drop. It looked like an enormous house cat the size of a horse. It had tan and orange stripes in its fur and large blue eyes. As it came a bit closer it yawned, then laid down. It raised one of its rear legs to lick itself and Tarah took a step backwards. This was no house cat. It had six legs and curving up behind it was the long chitinous tail of a scorpion.

“Why do you stop me, John?” asked the elf woman. She was still holding that sword like she wanted to cut Tarah in two.

“Because it’s unseemly. That’s why,” he said with a fatherly tone. The man planted Esmine’s staff in front of him and leaned forward. “Murdering some innocent child just because she stumbled into your back yard? Tsk-tsk. Tolynn, that’s beneath you.”

The commotion had not gone unnoticed. Tarah saw dozens of the ancient dark-skinned elves looking down at them from roots all around. A few of them were watching the scene with humorous expressions, but most of them looked almost as dour as Tolynn.

“Innocent?” Tolynn replied. She let go of the sword handle with one hand to point at Tarah. “She brings a great evil into this place! Then she defiles the trees! A-and she struck me in the nose.”

“I didn’t defile anything,” Tarah protested, tearing her gaze away from the cat-thing so that she could face the elf. “Or at least, if I did, I didn’t know anything was being defiled. I was innocent, like he said. As for striking you in the face . . . well, you were gonna kill me. Your face kinda deserved it.”

“No innocent carries an evil like that!” Tolynn argued. “I can feel it. It makes my skin itch!”

“Esmine ain’t evil. Or at least, I don’t think so,” Tarah said. “She’s just a bit wild.”

She wondered why the rogue horse was being so quiet. There was no papa or Grampa Rolf standing around making snarky remarks. Tarah hadn’t seen so much as a hint of illusion from Esmine in a while.

“Perhaps some introductions would help smooth things over,” the man said. “Tarah Woodblade.” He approached her and lifted the staff in his hands. “This is the second time I’ve had to retrieve your staff for you. You should be more careful.”

Tarah’s eyes widened. “You’re the Prophet.”

Djeri had told her how the Prophet had retrieved her staff from the river the day she met Esmine. He didn’t look anything like the legendary figure she had expected. He was just so . . . plain.

“I am. But you can call me John,” he said. He gestured at the elf woman. “Tarah, this is Tolynn Yni. She has cared for the grove for centuries and is currently the elves main contact with the Roo-Tan.”

Tarah groaned inwardly. Of course she would have had to offend someone important. “I am honored.”

“Honored?” Tolynn turned her glare on the Prophet. “John, when did you decide to start changing elven law? This woman should be slain immediately.”

He received her wrath with bemusement. “Tolynn, your bloodthirst surprises me. Why are you so eager to take a life without understanding it first?”

“I have no need to understand someone who would carry such evil with her!” Tolynn insisted.

The Prophet sighed. “I am sorry, Tarah. Perhaps it is time to give that evil up.”

“Why do you keep insisting that Esmine is evil?” Tarah said in exasperation. “Sure, she’s wild and today she was acting very unlike herself but, I have seen the core of her and she has a pure soul!”

John held up a consoling hand. “She’s not talking about the rogue horse, Tarah. I believe the item in question is resting somewhere else on your person.” He cocked his head. “Perhaps in your quiver?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Tarah said, pulling her bow and quiver over her head. “There’s just arrows in here. One of them might be a gorc arrow, but . . .” She swallowed at the glint of amber within. “What is that? . . . I had completely forgotten it was there.”

She reached in and grasped the hilt of the dark dagger inside. She felt an immediate wave of revulsion upon touching it and dropped the quiver, but the dagger stayed clenched in her hand. It was made of black iron and was cunningly made with amber jewels embedded in the hilt. The blade was a wicked thing, wide and twisted in a corkscrew pattern. A series of strange runes wound their way up the blade. It was stained a rusty red.

Tolynn and the surrounding elves recoiled at the sight of it. “See!” said Tolynn. “This woman brought that thing here to feed off of the life of the grove!”

“I didn’t even know I had it,” Tarah said. She tried to let go, but her fingers resisted her command. She had an urge to turn and stab it into the nearest Jharro root. She saw several elves fit arrows to Jharro bows and looked to the Prophet helplessly. “Don’t just stand there looking. Take it!”

“You wish to turn that dagger over to me?” John asked.

“Yes! Yes! Of course. Before they shoot me!” she gasped.

He raised a hand and the elves stayed their arrows. “What would you have me do with this thing?”

“Hell, I don’t know! Break it in half? Throw it into the sun? Whatever the Prophet does with something like this.” She lifted it towards him, but was unable to turn her wrist to hand it to him properly. “Just take it!”

He approached her, his voice calm. “Just to be clear, are you asking me to destroy it?”

“What did it sound like I said? Keep it on the mantle and polish it?” she said in exasperation. “Yes! Please destroy the damn thing!”

He reached out his hand and she felt the strange compulsion ease. She placed the hilt in his fingers and backed away from him, rubbing her hand on her thigh.

Now that the dagger was out of her possession, Tarah immediately felt better. It was as if a pressure she hadn’t even known was there had been eased from her mind. “I took it off a dark wizardess we killed a few weeks ago. I-I really have no idea why I had forgotten it was there. The stupid thing has to have been getting in the way of my arrows every time I drew one out.”

John lifted the dagger, a look of distaste on his face. “This is Malos, the amber dagger, one of six made for the high priests of the Dark Prophet. Its purpose is truly evil and Tolynn, you were right. Though Tarah did not know it, the dagger was feeding on the magic of this place. Sadly, the Dark Prophet just received a nice boost to his magic. We shall have to put a stop to that.”

He laid Esmine’s staff on the ground and lifted the dagger in both hands, holding it at eye level. A look of intense concentration grew on his face and steam began to rise from the dagger’s surface. Tarah had the weighty feeling that something tremendous was going on. The elves leaned forward, their jaws dropping as if seeing an astounding spectacle. Tarah knew that it was happening in the spiritual realm and wished that she could see what they were. It was as if something was happening at the edges of her mind and she just didn’t know how to tap into it.

The steam around the blade intensified and as the gray mist rose from the dagger, the color of it lightened. The metal paled, turning from a dark gray to a light gray and finally a brilliant white. Tarah wasn’t sure exactly what had transpired, but from the pleased reactions of the elves, she was sure that it had been a fight for the ages.

The Prophet sighed, wiping his brow. “There! It still needs some work, but the Dark Prophet’s stain on his blade has been lifted.” The dagger was beautiful, the amber stones sparkling in the filtered light of the grove. “Only Celos, the jade dagger remains.

He walked over to the enormous cat creature, who had watched the proceedings with a curious gaze. He opened a pair of saddlebags that appeared to be the only kind of riding gear on the great cat and placed the dagger inside. Then he turned back to look at them, a smile on his face.

“Thank you for bringing this to me, Tarah. The destruction of this is a splendid victory. See, Tolynn? Her coming here wasn’t such a bad thing.”

She glanced at Tarah, her eyes still burning with suspicion. “This woman did not know you were here. She came uninvited and violated two of the trees!”

The Prophet looked up at the trees around them. “Two of them? Is that so? They don’t seem violated to me. Tarah did you violate them?”

“No!” Tarah said, frustrated that the elf still wasn’t backing off. “Like I was trying to tell you. I just touched them and accidentally talked to them.” She pointed at the trees, finding that she could tell exactly which ones she had talked to. Their personalities showed in the very configuration of their branches. “The first one, the kind lady, and then old cranky over there, they asked me if I would protect them and I said yes. I’m not sure exactly what I promised to do but I’m on your side . . . a helper or whatever you call it.”

“Old Cranky?” The Prophet laughed. “That’s a good name for him. He’s still as strong as any of them, but he has been complaining for centuries.”

“What are you telling me, John?” Tolynn asked. “Should I let centuries of law and tradition fall by the wayside simply because some girl forces a connection to the trees? There are tests of dedication and knowledge given before any human is allowed to touch a tree. Should we abandon all pretense of order and begin letting in anyone who wants to try?”

“Of course not, but what’s done is done, isn’t it?” He bent and picked up Esmine’s staff once again. “Besides, from what this lady told me this wasn’t all Tarah’s fault.” He held the staff out to Tarah. “Aren’t you going to take it?”

“Well, um, sure.” Tarah reached out, but could not quite make herself grasp the wood. Esmine seemed calm right now, but Tarah was afraid of what the rogue horse might do once she was back in her hands.

“John . . .” Tolynn stepped forward, looking closer at the staff. Her gaze grew thunderous. “John, she cannot have that. It is made of dead wood!”

There were stunned clicks from the elves all around. John raised a calming hand and fixed his eyes on Tolynn. “Yes, you are correct. In fact, the wood of this staff came from your tree. It was made just over seven hundred years ago. By your husband.”

“Then give it to me, John,” the elf woman demanded. “I must return it to my tree.”

“I am not finished with its history,” John said, holding it just out of her reach. “Yntri gave it to a Roo-Tan warrior who was killed in a fight with a rather entrepreneurial Roo-Dan witch. She sold it and other Jharro items like it to a merchant and it ended up in the hands of an imp weapon crafter. He turned it into a blood staff, a weapon designed for the sole purpose of binding powerful souls.”

The elf woman hissed and drew back her hand. “You are right. This wood has been desecrated. It cannot be returned. It must be destroyed.”

“Tolynn,” the Prophet said disapprovingly. “Why do you blind yourself so? Look closer.”

The elf woman’s brow furrowed and she bent towards the staff. She blinked suddenly, raising a hand in front of her eyes as if she had just looked into the sun. “How is that possible?”

A rumble of clicks and whistles rose through the elves gathered above. “Finish your tale, John,” one of them shouted and there were many nods of agreement.

John nodded. “The blood staff was eventually sold by the imp and changed hands many times over the years, but it was never used for its intended purpose. It became a simple weapon and it kept absorbing blood until it turned as red as scarlet.

“Eventually, it came into the possession of a man with many names.” The Prophet paused for a moment, then looked at Tarah and as he continued, she realized that this part of the story was being told for her benefit. “He was a flawed man. A well-traveled man. In Dremald he was known as Ramshackle Rolf, the merchant. In parts of Alberri he had become known as Rolf, the Pincher. But the day he came across this staff he was in his hometown, the city of Dubeck, where he was known by the name of Rolf Beraldi.”

Tarah swallowed. She had a feeling that this was part of the staff’s story she did not want to know. She shook her head at the Prophet, but he continued anyway.

“That day, Rolf had a disagreement with a merchant friend of his. This disagreement came to blows and the merchant struck Rolf down with this very staff. Imagine Rolf’s surprise when he saw the staff suck up his blood as greedily as any leech.”

He lifted the silvery gray staff in the air and, to Tarah’s eyes, it was red as blood once again.

“The merchant, who was generally a peaceful man, was mortified at his own actions. He apologized to his friend, but Rolf was only interested in the scarlet staff. He asked the merchant what magic was in the staff, but the merchant, being unaware of its true purpose, insisted it was of minor magical value. A mere curiosity.

“Rolf did not believe that for a moment. He was a quarterstaff expert and he had never seen a staff do anything like that before. He had seen the strange runes on its shaft and had become sure that this was an item of great power. That belief awakened something else within Rolf. You see, he knew of several wealthy wizards and felt that if he could find the right buyer, this item of power would be worth a great deal of gold.”

The elves shrugged at each other, clicking in confusion. To them, the human desire for gold was a strange and foreign concept. Tarah, however understood it perfectly. She also knew that this desire had burned in her Grampa Rolf stronger than in most.

“Rolf offered his friend a tidy sum for it on the spot. The merchant, who had grown fond of the staff, wasn’t inclined to sell. Rolf left the tent dissatisfied, but over the next several months returned to his friend several times with different offers, determined to purchase that staff.

“Time passed and through a series of bad decisions and bad business deals, Rolf became destitute. His reputation had been soiled to the point where he dared not enter several cities that had once been sources of income for him. It was during this dark period that the staff came into his mind once again. He grew certain that this staff was his best chance at regaining his former wealth.”

“Uh, John,” Tarah said, her stomach boiling with dread. “Mister Prophet, sir? Does this whole story need to be told? It seems oddly detailed.”

His eyebrows rose. “Why Tarah. I have been telling tales for more years than I can count. I assure you that this information is crucial. Especially for you. Now shush and listen.”

Tarah bit her lip. She reached her thoughts towards the staff. Esmine! Is there a way for us to get out of here? Can you distract him or something? But there was no answer.

The Prophet continued, “So Rolf returned to his hometown and sought out his friend, hoping that the staff would still be in his possession. Rolf’s plan was to lie to his friend and tell him that he already had a buyer set up for the item. He would assure him that he would split the profits.

“Unfortunately, Rolf’s merchant friend had heard of his misfortunes. He took one look at Rolf and the condition of his clothes and refused him, pushing him out of the tent with the very staff he wanted so badly.”

One of the elves asked a question in his strange language and Tolynn answered him. “The humans you know are different! The Roo-Tan have learned from us, but in most of the world, humans have become ignorant of spirit magic.”

“This is true,” the Prophet said, looking slightly uncomfortable. After all, it was his own fault that spirit magic had come into disuse. He cleared his throat. “Late that night, Rolf returned to the tent of his friend and, using a sharp knife, cut his way in. He found the merchant sleeping with the staff close by. Rolf crept past him and grasped the prize he sought, but in the process, knocked over the merchant’s chamber pot.

“Needless to say, the merchant awoke enraged. Rolf, in a panic, struck his old friend with the butt of the staff and ran. Now Rolf, you remember, was an expert with the staff. In normal circumstances, he knew how to pull his blows, but in this odd circumstance-.”

“He killed him,” Tarah said numbly. She was thinking back to that terrible dream where she had seen a list of Rolf’s crimes. One of them had been murder. She hadn’t wanted it to be true.

“Yes,” John said, giving her a kind nod. “Rolf didn’t discover this until much later, but the merchant died from his wound.”

“So one human killed another over a piece of the Jharro Grove,” said Tolynn with a roll of her dark eyes. “Were we to be surprised by this? You still have not explained why the staff has become so changed.”

The Prophet pursed his lips. “Why is everyone rushing me today? How often do you get to hear my stories?” A few of the elves clicked in response and he said. “That’s right. So listen. I will need to leave again soon and who knows how long it will be before you have another chance.”

“I am sorry, John,” said Tolynn and to Tarah’s surprise, she looked quite chastened. “Please continue.”

“Thank you,” he said, sighing before he began again.

“Rolf Beraldi left his hometown a murderer, something that weighed on him for the rest of his life. But in the meantime, he was determined to sell that staff and regain his fortune. Unfortunately, no one thought the staff was as valuable as he did.

“Rolf traveled from wizard to wizard only to be told that the majority of the runes on it were fake. You see, as Tolynn explained earlier, mankind had become unfamiliar with spirit magic runes and even the ones who still had the knowledge would have had difficulty interpreting the impish design.

“Finally Rolf made one last desperate trip. He went to the Mage School in Dremaldria, having heard that there was a wizard there who, though not extremely wealthy, had a fondness for oddities. But it was not to be. The one wizard that would meet with him only offered a paltry sum, before dismissing him.

“Having exhausted every possibility he could think of, Rolf had little recourse. He couldn’t sell the staff. He could not return to Dubeck, and his merchant friends in various cities would have heard of Rolf’s tainted name. So he traveled to the town of Pinewood, where he had a granddaughter and a son-in-law. Surely his own family wouldn’t turn him away.”

“It was the first time he had visited since momma died,” Tarah said. She was staring off into space, her mind dredging up the memory. “Papa wasn’t happy to see him.”

Tolynn narrowed her eyes. “This is . . ?”

“Tarah Woodblade, granddaughter of Rolf Beraldi, the murderer,” Tarah said, giving her an exaggerated bow. “Though I didn’t know that last part until just now. I knew he had been involved in some shady dealings over the years, but he was always just Grampa Rolf to me.” She frowned at the Prophet. “How do you know all this?”

He lifted the staff in answer. “He told me himself. There is a lot of history in this wood.”

“No there isn’t,” Tarah said. “The history is gone. Any memories of Grampa Rolf’s were rubbed away long ago, replaced by my own.”

John raised an eyebrow at her, as if amused to be questioned in such a way. “Not so. Memories never truly fade, Tarah. They simply stack on top of each other. Just because you have only trained your ability to allow you to see a single layer doesn’t mean the others have ceased to exist.”

“One moment, John,” said Tolynn. “You say that this woman is a reader?”

“Indeed she is,” John replied and the elf woman drew back in shock.

Tarah was so stunned by the Prophet’s previous revelation that it took a while for her to register what the elf had said. “Why are you so surprised? What is there about me that makes you think I can’t read? My momma taught me when I was a child and I read very well, thank you.”

“She was speaking about your magical talent,” the Prophet explained. “You have a strong talent in bonding magic and more than a little bit of binding magic as well. Most often people strong in bonding magic become listeners, able to communicate with a person’s soul, but there is the rare exception. Some listeners are also seers, able to catch glimpses of the possible future, and some are readers, able to catch glimpses of the past.”

“That is more than just a rare talent, John,” Tolynn said. “I haven’t seen or heard of a reader in hundreds of years.”

Tarah felt a sudden urge to sit down. So much information was coming at her at once. “Th-then this thing I can do is a known magic. It’s not unique.” Somehow she found that thought comforting.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” John replied. “As many readers as I’ve known in the past I can’t think of any who have honed their talent in the way you have. Tracking beasts? Guiding travelers?”

Tarah didn’t know whether to thank him or be offended. Was he praising her for creative use of her powers or mocking her for such a cheap use of them? She was about to ask him when a few of the elves interrupted with clicked questions of their own.

“Right. I interrupted the story, didn’t I?” he said. “I was talking about the origins of this staff.”

“Do you really need to tell the rest?” Tarah said. She felt as though enough of her life had been shared with strangers for one day.

“You do wish me to convince Tolynn not to execute you?” he asked. Tarah sighed in response and he turned back to the elves so that he could continue. “As I was saying, Tarah and her father were the last of Rolf’s surviving relatives that cared at all about him anymore. When he arrived at their door, he was let in, though hesitantly by Tarah’s father.

“In the beginning, Rolf’s intentions were simply to stay with them through the winter, let them provide him with food and lodging, and then set out in search of other buyers. But something changed during that time. Rolf fell in love. With his granddaughter.

“Rolf was an old man by this time and he saw in Tarah everything that he had given up in order to pursue wealth and fame. He doted on her. He spent every moment with her that her father would allow. On Tarah’s twelfth birthday, he gave her his only possession of value; the blood staff. He told her that it was a massively powerful item and, to her father’s dismay, promised that one day the staff would make her famous.

“At that point Rolf had given up on dreams of riches. He spent several months with his granddaughter, happily teaching her staff play, but one day a message came to him from an old business partner. He had a new scheme, a product which, if sold correctly would make them both very wealthy. At first, Rolf put the message aside, content with his new life, but after a series of fierce arguments with Tarah’s father, he decided to leave. He would meet this old partner of his, regain his wealth and come back to shower Tarah with gifts.”

Tarah hadn’t heard the story from this angle before. She had known that her papa hadn’t trusted Rolf and when her grampa had left, she had assumed it was because her papa had driven him away. She had been angry with Gad for weeks after that. Now she thought she knew the reason that he really left. It was the formula for the resin that he had used to make her moonrat armor.

Tarah swallowed, glad that she had decided to trade away the armor instead of bringing it with her. She did not think that Tolynn would have taken kindly to the use of Jharro sap in the recipe. She hoped that the Prophet wouldn’t let that part of the story be known.

“Shortly after Rolf left, Tarah had her awakening. Her ability to read the tracks of animals confused her and she kept it secret, even from her father. She assumed that these new powers had come from her staff and feared that he might take it away. Years passed. Tarah spent every waking moment with that staff. Training with it. Tracking with it. Growing strong.

“Then when she was sixteen her father caught a human disease known as ‘the rot’. It sapped away his vitality and as he grew weaker, he knew that he wouldn’t survive. He sent for Rolf, asking him to care for Tarah when he was gone.

“This message came to Rolf at a crucial time. This business deal that had started out so full of promise had been rapidly falling apart. He had a choice to make, one that could have taken him down an even darker path than before.”

This was the part Tarah had been dreading. Her jaw clenched as she waited for the Prophet to reveal another horrible piece of history. What could it be? Had Rolf hewn down a Jharro tree to harvest the sap or something?

John’s eyes met hers, but if her pleading gaze had convinced him to hold back, she couldn’t tell. “Now, if Rolf had one redeeming quality it was his love for his granddaughter. He took this message as an opportunity to get out. He abandoned his business partner and rushed back to Tarah’s side.

“He arrived just after Tarah’s father had died. Rolf consoled her as best as he could and stayed by her side. She already knew more than he did about surviving in the wild so he taught her everything he knew about business. He showed her how to be wily as well as resourceful. By the time Rolf caught ill and passed away himself, Tarah was a well-known guide and tracker, using her magic to accomplish tasks that other guide’s couldn’t.”

The crowd of elves around them had grown as he talked and the Prophet held their rapt attention. He went on to describe her exploits during the war and the way she and Djeri had destroyed the foul goblinoids that had defiled her home and how they had later been captured by the dwarf smugglers.

Tarah was surprised by how heroic her story sounded. Of course, John was kind enough to leave out the mad way she had talked to the voices of her papa and grampa in her head and the way that her cowardice had nearly betrayed them on several occasions, but there was something magical about the way he told the tale. It was as if they could see the journey unfolding before their eyes.

The elves cheered as they heard how she had thwarted the dwarves’ attempts to capture the rogue horse. They grew saddened when they heard about Esmine’s eventual capture, and Tarah saw a tear in Tolynn’s eye as he described Esmine’s death. Finally, he told them about the battle for Esmine’s soul and how Tarah had coaxed the rogue horse into her grasp, binding her to the staff and purifying it of the centuries worth of blood it held.

When he finished, the elves looked at Tarah in a new light. Even Tolynn’s gaze had softened towards her. Tarah, though still feeling uncomfortable about so much of her life being told to these elves, became hopeful that this would all turn out well.

Rolf’s salesman training told her that this was probably a good time to address the crowd. Tarah cleared her throat. “That’s why I’m here in Malaroo! The gnome that killed Esmine has brought an army of demons into this country and plans on conquering the grove. My friends and I are seeking the aid of the Roo-Tan.”

“I have heard of this army. Xedrion has told me,” Tolynn said. She twirled her Jharro staff and approached Tarah. The anger was gone from her eyes, but there was still a sternness in her features that was terribly intimidating.

“Tolynn . . ,” the Prophet said.

The elf woman raised a stiff hand, silencing him, and stood directly in front of Tarah. Though the elf was a good foot shorter than her, Tarah had to force herself not to back away. “I still have a question, woman. Why are you here?”

“But I just-. Oh. In the grove?” Tarah did her best to keep her voice level. “Well, Esmine was curious and we were tired of being stuck in the palace and . . . Alright, I suppose that I have no good excuse. But we meant no harm. We just wanted to see it.”

Tolynn stuck out her hand, palm up. “Place your palm on top of mine.”

Tarah winced. She was pretty sure what would happen. “Is that really necessary?”

“Is it such a difficult request?” Tolynn asked.

Tarah was certain that this was a test of some sort. She raised her hand and concentrated, chanting over and over again in her mind, Don’t use the magic. Don’t use the magic. Her palm rested on top of the elf’s.

Her concentration was for naught. The moment her palm touched Tolynn’s, a torrent of memories flooded Tarah’s mind.

The elf was ancient indeed. She was as old as many of the trees in the grove, but her life had not been as tranquil. Born long before the Roo-Tan came along, Tolynn had been raised for war. While others were caretakers, she was a warrior. She had fought alongside her people for centuries and in her defense of the grove, had killed hundreds. Many of these were attackers or thieves looking to harvest the trees’ wood or sap as a resource, but in her younger days it didn’t matter. Anyone who entered the grove unbidden was cut down. Men, women, wizards, merpeople, imps, she had slaughtered them all. These memories were filled, not with glee or malice, but with the grim satisfaction of a job well done.

Tolynn removed her hand. “It is just as you claimed. You have no control over these powers of yours.”

Tarah’s fingers trembled with intimidation. What she had seen didn’t seem possible. There had been no peace. No love. Not even sorrow in Tolynn’s life. Had this woman really done nothing but fight and kill?

Her fear turned to suspicion. “I think you only let me see what you wanted me to see.”

The elf raised a hairless eyebrow. “Why would I allow you to do otherwise?” She turned to the Prophet. “You expect me to let this child leave this grove with an immensely powerful weapon such as this? She is completely untrained and she has no control over the soul bound to this dead wood. The havoc she could wreak with this item is unimaginable.”

“I’m not gonna wreak any havoc,” Tarah protested. “I’m just gonna defeat this gnome warlord and then I’ll be on my way. You’ll never have to see me again.” She pursed her lips. “Well, I don’t think so anyway. I’m still not sure what I promised those trees.”

Tolynn didn’t respond to Tarah directly, but focused her glare on the Prophet. John returned that glare with tired eyes. “Tolynn, you know the solution to your problem even if you’re reluctant to do it. Now just listen to her and get this over with. I have places to be.”

The elf’s shoulders slumped slightly and she turned back to Tarah. “Hold your arms out to the sides.”

Tarah didn’t like the direction this was going. “What is this about? What solution?”

The elf nudged Tarah’s arm with her staff. “Raise them.”

Tarah gave the Prophet a questioning glance and he gave her a gesture that said ‘get on with it’. She raised her arms and Tolynn began pacing around her, poking her in various places with a stiff finger.

“You have the frame of a half-orc,” Tolynn observed.

Tarah’s eyes widened at the insult. She had dealt with remarks like this all her life. Was this part of the test? She decided not to respond back in kind. “My papa was an imposing man. I’ve used this frame to my advantage.”

The elf cocked her head. “What happened to your nose?”

Tarah couldn’t let that one slide. She gritted her teeth as a ready multitude of replies tumbled through her mind. “I punch myself in the face every day, just to keep in shape.”

“That is a foolish practice,” Tolynn observed. “It would not exercise any useful muscle groups.”

“It helped me make your face a little prettier,” Tarah remarked.

She waited for another angry reply, but the elf just grinned. To Tarah’s surprise, Tolynn stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Tarah’s torso, squeezing her head tight against the center of Tarah’s chest in a deep embrace. Tarah turned a confused look to the elves standing around, but they just watched the situation expectantly.

They stood there frozen for several seconds before Tolynn finally released her. The elf stepped back and gave her a resigned, but irritated nod. “Very well. I shall train you.”

“You’ll what?” Tarah said.

Chapter Twelve

“If you are going to protect the trees as you promised, you must learn how to use your abilities properly. I am not a reader, but I can help you develop your listening skills and at least teach you to choose when to use them,” Tolynn said.

“Good!” said John with a smile. “I had hoped this would be the outcome.”

“Good?” Tarah wasn’t sure how good this was. Learning to control her powers was an inviting concept, but taking this elf woman as a teacher wasn’t very appealing. Besides, there was a larger concern. “How long will this take? I have a gnome warlord to fight.”

Tolynn folded her hands thoughtfully. “Yes. The threat is real. Which is why you need to hone these skills. I suppose we can afford to allow you a few hours a day to that end,” she decided.

“A few hours a day?” Tarah said. “That ain’t gonna be enough. I might need to be miles away from here tracking that army.”

“Hmm. She makes a good point. I will be quite busy with my other responsibilities. This is a terrible time for me to take on a trainee,” Tolynn said.

“Well maybe once this is all over,” Tarah said, feeling relieved.

“Perhaps you could split time with Beth,” John suggested.

The elf smiled. “Ah, yes. Listener Beth is an excellent choice. She has developed some skill with binding. Perhaps she can pass some of that knowledge on. Tarah must learn to better use the capabilities of this weapon.”

“Wait!” Tarah said. “I have made too many blind agreements today already. What am I agreeing to?”

“You misunderstand. It is not an offer and it is not an agreement,” Tolynn corrected. “It is a sentence being imposed upon you for the laws you have broken. You should be thanking John. Thanks to his impassioned pleas on your behalf I have ordered this in the place of your death.”

“You will be learning from two of the most powerful listeners in the known lands,” the Prophet assured her. “And they will help you better understand your powers. It is an opportunity that most spirit magic users would beg for.”

“A sentence . . .” Tarah said numbly.

Tolynn grasped the end of her staff and twisted, pulling a chunk of wood free. It changed form in her hands and she slapped it over Tarah’s wrist. Tarah looked down to see a slim bracelet of Jharro wood form and harden. She grasped it and gave it an experimental tug. It was tight. She doubted that she would be able to pry it off without severely hurting herself.

Nor should you try, said Tolynn’s voice inside her head. The elf woman smiled in satisfaction. I would know if you managed to do so.

“Why are you in my head?” Tarah growled.

“This is so that I can keep track of you and so that you will understand my speech. The human tongue tires my lips,” Tolynn responded in the clicks and whistles of her people. Tarah found that the bracelet translated the elf’s words in her mind, allowing her to understand them. “I can contact you through this when needed and you will learn to use it to contact me. Consider it training. You will improve your ability to communicate with the soul bound to the staff you wield.”

I can already do that just fine, Tarah replied mentally.

“I shall be the judge of that,” Tolynn said.

The Prophet clapped his hands together. “Now that we have that settled, it is time Tarah and I were going.”

“You are leaving us?” the elf clicked.

“I have accomplished my reason for being here. Be well, Tolynn,” John said and raised his voice as he waved to the other elves. “Be well, all of you! Dark times may soon come, but keep the light inside and keep the grove safe!”

The elves clicked him a farewell and made an odd gesture, forming a triangle with their fingers and placing it over their hearts. The Prophet returned the gesture. “Come, Tarah. I believe there are people looking for you.”

Tolynn’s thoughts echoed into Tarah’s mind. You will return here early on the morrow. I will speak with Xedrion and let him know you are allowed.

Tarah frowned. She supposed she had no choice. I will be here.

I will contact you and you will be prompt, Tolynn said. I will not put up with lateness.

One of the elves jumped down from the roots above. His arms were loaded with vegetables from one of the gardens. He handed them to the Prophet, clicking in gratitude, thanking him for the story. John patted his head in thanks and took the vegetables to the cat creature and loaded them into the saddlebags.

“Up, Steff. It’s time to go,” he said and turned to Tarah. “I will escort you out of the grove before I take leave of you.”

As he spoke, the large cat-like thing walked up behind the Prophet and rubbed its head against his back. Then it continued, rubbing its whole body length against him before turning away, its rear end stopping just over his shoulder. The creature let out a soft meow. John staggered forward under the assault, but wasn’t put off by the odd affection.

“Yes, Steff. I know you want me to ride. Just be patient a little while longer,” he said. John glanced over his shoulder to find his face just inches from the base of its chitinous tail. He turned away with a grimace. “Ugh. Stop that! You know I don’t like it when you do that.” He gave Tarah an exasperated look. “Cats. Come, Tarah. No more standing around.”

The six-legged cat meowed an entreaty, but the Prophet started down one of the Jharro root pathways, using Esmine’s staff like a walking stick. He used long strides and Tarah hurried to join him. The cat padded along sullenly and quietly behind them.

“I have been wanting to ask you,” Tarah said, gesturing back at the strange animal. “What is that thing?”

“Steff is a rogue horse,” he replied. “As you may have noticed, I use them as mounts from time to time.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Tarah said, looking at the cat with greater appreciation. “You were riding that gorilla one that I was tracking over the winter. What ever happened to him?”

“Rufus? Ah, well I left him to find the bonding wizard who best suits his needs. I was reluctant to part with him but it’s one of the tasks I set myself centuries ago. That was their original purpose after all.” He let out a bittersweet sigh. “There are very few left now. Sooner or later they will all be gone. It will be a sad day when I give the last one away.”

Tarah nodded thoughtfully, looking at the staff he held as he walked. “So if Esmine hadn’t been killed, would you have found her a bonding wizard too?”

“Esmine was a special case.” He followed Tarah’s eyes and held the staff out towards her. “Are you ready to take her back yet?”

“Well . . .” Tarah reached out, but hesitated to grasp it.

He lowered the staff and continued using it as a walking stick. “She frightened you with her behavior, didn’t she? When I picked her up she was furious that you intended to leave her behind.”

“She put me through something I had no wish to go through again,” Tarah admitted. “I wasn’t going to put up with it anymore.”

“An understandable reaction,” he said.

“Why did she do it?” Tarah asked. “She tell you that?”

“As I was saying, Esmine is a special case. She is different from the other rogue horses, you see.”

“How?” Tarah asked. She certainly seemed more horse-like than the other rogue horses she had seen.

“Well, Stardeon designed the rogue horses to be the perfect mounts. They were meant to be strong, long-lived, powerful, and eager to serve. In fact, he made them eager to a fault. They grow very unhappy if they aren’t serving their purpose,” he explained. “Esmine, on the other hand was designed with stealth in mind. This made her sly and more than a little feisty. Sometimes those personality traits override the more basic emotions he built into her.”

“I’ve noticed,” Tarah agreed.

“I first noticed this myself on the day I tried to round them up after Stardeon’s fall. Esmine didn’t want to follow along with me. She ran off on her own,” he said. “She wasn’t the only one. The majority of them were captured by dwarf smugglers or wizards. I feared that Esmine would perish like the rest of them, but she managed to keep herself free for all these years.”

“She is a survivor.” Tarah said with more than a little pride in her voice. “She grew real independent over that time. I guess that’s one of the reasons she has become so difficult to deal with.”

“Yes. Independent and perhaps a little delusional,” he said. “I imagine she was already difficult to deal with before you picked up that dark dagger from the dead wizardess.”

“Yeah,” Tarah said. Esmine had been restless and pushy from the beginning, but now that Tarah thought about it, the rogue horse had gotten a lot worse after she picked up the knife. “Are you telling me that what she did to me today was because of that thing?”

He shrugged. “In part. The magic of the grove increased the strength of the dagger, which projects feelings of anger or misery, so that certainly couldn’t have hurt. But I believe there are several factors that led up to her little outburst today. Remember she spent a thousand years as a free creature, roaming the land at her will. Imagine how you would feel if you were suddenly trapped in a staff, unable to go anywhere unless you were carried there by your master.”

Tarah frowned. She hadn’t thought about it like that. Considering it from that angle, Esmine’s anger made a lot of sense. “I guess by binding her to that staff I made her pretty unhappy.”

“Don’t feel guilt over that,” he said, reaching out to pat her comfortingly on the shoulder. “You made the best choice available, Tarah. You kept her out of the hands of that gnome warlord.”

“I suppose,” she said. The fact that the Prophet thought so did help her feel a little better.

They reached the outskirts of the grove and walked down the last root path. The Prophet paused at the edge just before the root plunged into the lush black soil. “May we sit? There is one more thing we must discuss before I take leave of you.”

He sat on the edge of the root, and rested Esmine’s staff across his knees. Tarah glanced around before sitting on a nearby rock that jutted out of the ground as if made for the purpose. “Where are you headed from here?” she asked.

“I’m still trying to decide that.” A troubled look passed through his eyes. “I feel torn, Tarah. There are several large, possibly world-changing, events that are building right now and I cannot personally deal with all of them. The reason I have been here in the grove is that it is one of the few remaining places in the known lands where I can fully communicate with my master.” He sighed. “The choice has been left up to me.”

The Prophet had a master? Tarah had never heard that before. He seemed like such a power unto himself. She wondered why he was opening up to her of all people. “Uh, which one of these ‘events’ needs you most?”

The cat-like rogue horse stretched and laid on her back next to the Prophet and placed her large furry head on his lap. He let go of the staff and scratched under her chin while he thought. “Therein lies my difficulty. Every one of these battles involves places and people within the realm of my responsibility and I fear that no matter which one I choose, major players, people that I care for, will die.”

“Isn’t one of those places here?” Tarah asked. War was coming to Malaroo, she was sure of it.

“It is,” he admitted.

“Then why not stay here and help?” The choice seemed an obvious one to her. After all, she had just learned for herself how important the grove was.

“I would like to,” he said. “But much of the responsibility in this event belongs to someone else. Besides, I have already placed a great deal of pieces here to deal with the problem. I must trust in the people here, including you, to protect this place.”

That seemed incredibly irresponsible in Tarah’s mind. “But didn’t you say that some of us are going to die if you leave?”

“There is no guarantee that everyone would survive even if I were to stay. No, I must choose one of the other areas of danger.” A weight lifted off of him as he made the decision. “I shall go west from here. Perhaps doing so will only delay the inevitable, but sometimes sacrifices must be made for the betterment of all. Thank you, Tarah. Speaking with you helped.”

Tarah frowned. That statement didn’t make her feel any better.

Steff tired of being rubbed under the chin and rolled over so that he could scratch behind her horse-like ears. A rumbling purr echoed from her large body.

“My next destination is not what I intended to speak with you about, however,” John said. “It has to do with your father and grandfather and why you are so reluctant to take back this staff.”

“Did Esmine tell you what she did?” Tarah asked.

“She was a bit too stubborn to do so,” he said. “However, I did speak to both Rolf and Gad.”

Tarah blinked. “You can do that? Speak to the dead?”

“It is not usually something I do. The dead are quite busy. But this is a special case.” He stopped scratching the rogue horse and leaned forward. “You, see, their souls are still partially tied to this staff.”

Tarah’s face paled and she licked her lips a few times as she tried to think how to reply to that. “How?”

“As you heard earlier, Rolf’s blood was absorbed by the staff years before you received it. Your father’s was absorbed some time later. It’s not clear to me when, only that you were holding the staff at the time.”

Tarah felt her throat tightening up. “The bear trap.”

It had happened a year before he died. They had been hired to hunt a bear near the outskirts of Pinewood. Gad had become well known for his fearlessness in tracking down large animals. Only the logger that had hired them hadn’t told them about the traps he had already laid out.

The one that grabbed Gad was a heavy iron monstrosity and it had cut him to the bone. There had been so much blood. Tarah had tried frantically to pry it open with her staff. Finally her papa had used the Ramsetter to cut the trap off himself. Then he had insisted that they kill the bear first before he let her stitch him up. Tarah had always been suspicious that the bear trap had been the reason he had caught the rot. The wound had never been properly cleaned.

“Then all this time . . . they’ve been trapped,” she said.

“No,” John replied. “A blood staff doesn’t bind souls on its own. It merely creates a connection to make it easier for the wielder to complete the binding process. However, since that process was never completed, they remained linked to you in a real, but intangible way. That’s why you were finding it so hard to let them go. I saw this when I first touched the staff.”

“But why are they still connected to it. When I bound Esmine to the staff and the blood drained from it . . . weren’t they released?” Tarah asked.

John ran his fingers down the runes in the wood. “When Esmine was bound to this staff, she saw into your mind and she recognized that their two souls were important to you. So she used her considerable power to keep those links active. This allowed her to communicate with them even though you could not.”

Tarah’s lips trembled. “Then that’s why she knew all those things about them. Things I never remembered learning.”

“Yes. But please consider this. As misguided as her approach was, she wanted to make you happy,” the Prophet explained. “That’s why Esmine continued using their forms to talk to you even after you asked her not to.”

She placed her face in her hands. “What do I do about this, John?”

“About your father and grandfather? There’s nothing you need to do,” the Prophet said. “I have spoken with them and they wish to have the link between them and the staff removed. I told them that I would do so.”

“They want it gone?” Tarah said.

“They do. Not because it causes them any pain or discomfort, but because of the pain it causes you. They are glad that you remember them, but they don’t want you to be haunted by those memories.”

“They said this to you?” Tarah said, a knot rising in her throat.

He shrugged. “Well, your father did. Rolf mainly just grunted in agreement and said things like, ‘Tarah Woodblade shouldn’t cry’ and ‘Tarah Woodblade don’t need no man.’ I believe that statement was referring to your attachment with Djeri. Your father disagrees, by the way. He quite likes him.”

A laugh escaped Tarah’s lips and she wiped tears from her eyes. “I thought they would feel that way.” She sniffed. Now that she knew that they were there, it felt like she was losing them all over again. “John, what if I’m not ready to let them go?”

“I am afraid that you don’t really have a choice in the matter. Both of them have asked me to sever the connection and I am going to honor their wishes.” The Prophet gave her a kind smile. “I can, however, let you say goodbye to them one last time. Would you like that?”

Tarah nodded. “Please.”

He reached out to her. “Give me your hands.”

He grasped her hands in his and Tarah was no longer sitting at the edge of the grove. She was standing in front of her old home built over the entrance to a cave. It wasn’t as she had last seen it, burned down and smoldering. It was the way it had been back when she was twelve.

Grampa Rolf was sitting on the front porch, carving a piece of wood and her papa was standing to the side, scraping down a bear hide that he had laid over a workbench. Both of them looked up as she approached.

“Tarah!” said Grampa Rolf, leaping up from his chair to greet her first. He pulled her into his wiry embrace. “I’m proud of you, girl. You’ve become even better than I imagined you would be. And you know I imagine big.”

“I missed you, Grampa Rolf. I . . .” Her brow furrowed.

“Yeah, I ain’t too proud about what I done in my past,” he said, pulling back, his gaze regretful. “I wasn’t too happy about it when John told you.”

“That wasn’t what I was thinking about,” she said. “It’s just that when you were dying-.”

“Hey, don’t you worry about what that Esmine showed you. It weren’t never your fault. Old men die of old man stuff.” He gave her an encouraging smile. “What I want you to remember when you think of me is just stuff I taught you. I know it weren’t all good, but pick the good ones.”

“Okay grampa,” she said.

He gave her one more quick squeeze and kissed her cheek, then stood back, letting Gad take his place. Her papa’s embrace was firmer and longer. “You know, we had lots of last hugs when I was sick, but I like this one better.”

“Oh papa!” Tarah said, tears rising in her eyes once again. She held him tight and let go of all other thought. This was how she wanted to remember him. This was her papa, strong and vital, not frail and weak like he had been when he was ill.

“Tarah, I wanted you to know that I’m glad the Ramsetter didn’t just stay buried with me. That dwarf . . . friend of yours is a good choice for my sword.”

“John said you liked him. Is that really true? I was worried that you wouldn’t like me being with a dwarf.”

“I don’t like it!” Rolf barked.

“Shut up, Rolf. This is my time,” Gad snapped, then looked back at Tarah. “I don’t see how him being a dwarf matters. He’s strong. He’s an academy graduate, which definitely helps.” He smiled. “But more importantly, he cares for you and he sees you for who you are.” His smile faded slightly. “Though I do wish you had waited until you got married.”

“Papa!” she said, her cheeks turning red. She hadn’t considered that he would have known about that.

“I should have gotten around to talking to you about that kind of stuff, but I don’t know. It wasn’t easy. That’s a talk for a momma to have, you know.” He cleared his throat. “The important thing is that he makes you happy and all that.”

“He does,” she said, though his focus on the subject made her slightly uncomfortable. They were talking like she and Djeri were all but married and honestly, Tarah hadn’t given it much thought. She had too many other things to worry about. Like the rebellious soul of a rogue horse and a gnome warlord that needed to be stopped.

“Well, the main thing, Tarah is that you know I’m proud of you,” he said. “Don’t worry about the rest.”

She pulled back. “I love you. The both of you.”

“We know,” her papa assured her. “And hey, this isn’t goodbye forever.”

“Just make sure I don’t see you again until a long time from now,” added Grampa Rolf. “Tarah Woodblade has too many legends to make.”

“I . . .” Tarah’s breath caught in her throat. They were gone. The house faded away too, until there was nothing left but milky white.

Chapter Thirteen

The Prophet dropped her hands and gave her a sad smile. “It’s done. The connections are severed.” He lifted the staff. “Esmine is the only soul attached to this staff. The question now is do you want her back?”

Tarah blew out a long slow breath. She wasn’t ready to deal with that yet. Papa and Grampa Rolf were gone. For real this time. No more voices in her head. She swallowed. “Would she still try to speak to me as them?”

He shrugged. “I told her not to, and she says she is sorry about what she did, but she’s still Esmine. She no longer has their souls to gather information from and without the presence of that dagger to stir her up, things should be better.”

Tarah nodded and reached out her hand. This time the Prophet paused before placing it in her fingers. “You should know that you don’t have to wield her. I know you feel that she is your responsibility, but the kind of power she is capable of in this form may not be the kind of power you want.”

“I know,” Tarah said. “But if you didn’t think I could handle it, would you be handing her back to me?”

“No,” he said and placed the staff in her hand.

Tarah didn’t feel anything right away. “I take it you have been suppressing her somehow.”

“I have,” John said. “She would have been disruptive otherwise. You needed to hear that story and you needed to come to an understanding with Tolynn without her interference.”

She stood. “Thank you, John. I didn’t know how bad of a situation I was in.”

He stood as well. “It was my pleasure. Come, Steff. I’m ready for that ride now.”

The rogue horse rolled to her feet and moved up next to him eagerly. He leapt up onto her back and looked back at Tarah. “Train hard and listen to Tolynn and Beth. The things they can teach you will be invaluable. Also, you still have time to decide what to do with that staff. Her abilities will be needed in the upcoming battles, but if you ever decide that you need to give her up, just speak with Tolynn.”

“I will,” she said.

He nodded at her and Steff leapt forward. They rode into the trees and were swiftly out of view.

Tarah sighed and started back towards the city. She decided to keep to one of the main paths this time. You there, Esmine?

Yes, the rogue horse replied sullenly.

Can you keep us hidden on the way back? Tarah asked.

Yes, Esmine said. No one will see you.

Tarah jogged up the trail in silence for a while before Esmine spoke again. I am sorry about what I did.

Me too, Tarah replied. Will you promise me that you will never appear as Grampa Rolf or my Papa again?

But . . . I guess, Esmine said. But what if I want to talk to you? And not just in the head.

Now that she didn’t have Tarah’s relatives to hide behind, the rogue horse’s thoughts seemed fairly childlike. Then appear to me as yourself, Tarah said. You were beautiful as a rogue horse. That’s how I like to think of you.

But I can’t talk when I look like that, Esmine complained. I liked pretending that I had lips.

Then pick someone else, Tarah said. She was quick to add, Not someone I know.

As the trail crested the top of the incline, Tarah felt a wave of heat hit her. The smell of the grove was gone. It was replaced by air that was less satisfying to breathe and accompanied by a plethora of biting insects.

“So can we go back to the grove now?” asked a deep voice and Tarah was startled to see a man running alongside her. He was a Roo-Tan man; handsome, deeply tanned and with white ribbons in his braids. “I like it better in there.”

“We go back in the morning,” Tarah said. “And no, you can’t be this person. Pick someone else. And be a girl this time. You are not a male.”

“That’s hard,” he grumbled. Then he evaporated into thin air.

Tarah jogged alone for a few minutes, then suddenly there was a small girl child standing on the trail in front of her. She was a dark-skinned elf child of the race that tended the grove, looking to be somewhere between the ages of eight and ten in human terms. But unlike the Jharro Grove elves, she had a full head of hair done up in the Roo-Tan style with white ribbons in her braids. She wore a child-sized version of garb that the Roo-Tan warrior women wore, with tight pants and a hide breastplate.

The elf girl carried a Jharro staff in one hand and used it to point into the trees above. “Look out!”

Tarah looked up and saw a dark shape falling towards her. She had just enough time to raise her staff defensively before it struck.

Deathclaw’s weight bore her to the ground. The next thing Tarah knew, she was flat on her back. He had gripped the haft of her staff in both hands and had it pinned under her neck. The raptoid held her down, his reptilian face inches from hers.

Tarah was startled, but not afraid once she saw who it was. She was fairly sure that Sir Edge’s bonded was no enemy of hers. Esmine, how did he see me?

“Illusions!” he said in irritation, his lips pulling back to expose bits of flesh caught between sharp teeth. “I will not be fooled again!”

Sorry! Esmine said. He shouldn’t have seen or heard anything.

“Get off me, dragon!” Tarah snapped. She could feel his rear claws digging into the leather covering her thighs and she didn’t like the way that the sharp end of his tail hovered over them, ready to strike. “Ugh! Do you not clean your teeth?”

“You are being sought after, Woodblade,” he hissed. “You are not supposed to be here!”

“Yeah, well I got that all straightened out,” she assured him. “So move it!”

He snarled. “Not until the others arrive. You-!”

Now! Esmine cried and the raptoid flinched.

Tarah saw flames reflected in his eyes as if they were coming out of her mouth. She spat in his face and he recoiled as if she had spewed fire. This gave her just the leverage she needed.

Tarah twisted her body and pushed on the staff, forcing him to roll off of her. Both of them came to their feet. He wiped his face with the back of his arm, Esmine’s illusion of heat having worn off.

“Illusions!” he hissed again.

“She’s not very good at touch yet,” Tarah said as she twirled her staff. “Now back off. I’m tired of dealing with misunderstandings today and I will beat you senseless if you don’t leave me alone!”

The raptoid smiled, a hideous sight, as he reached for the handle of his sword.

Esmine, how many duplicates of me can you make? Tarah asked.

In answer, the forest was full of Tarah Woodblades, scores of them. Each one twirling her staff and heading towards the raptoid. He tensed up, glancing briefly around him, then leapt towards the spot where Tarah had last been standing, swinging his sword in a wide sweep. It was a wicked strike, but Tarah had moved to the side.

She swung the butt of her staff against the side of his head. It was a calculated blow, intended to render him unconscious, but he turned his head at the last possible instant. It was a glancing blow. He stumbled forward and twisted around with a back-handed slash of his blade. The tip of it gouged her left shoulder pauldron.

He hissed in pleasure, his grin widening as blood dripped down the side of his face from the gash her staff had left in his skin. “See? I am learning.”

Then the swarm of Tarah copies attacked. The staff strikes weren’t real, but left a stinging sensation upon impact. Tarah backed away to give them room to work.

He shied away from the blows at first, hissing as each one landed, but he soon convinced his body that the sensations were not real. He closed his eyes and stood calmly with his sword raised, ignoring the copies as he sought her out with his other senses.

“Alright, stop this!” shouted a male voice.

Tarah turned to see Sir Edge riding through the trees, mounted on Gwyrtha’s back. Jhonate bin Leeths was sitting behind him, her arms wrapped around his waist. They came to a stop a few yards away and searched with their eyes, trying to discover which Tarah was real.

Edge frowned in consternation. “Deathclaw, enough! You know she is not our enemy. And Tarah, please stop tormenting him. He’s going to obsess about this for days.”

Do I attack them too? Esmine asked.

No. Go ahead and stop but next time you need to warn me when people are approaching, Tarah said.

“I was focusing on the dragon,” she replied and all the duplicate Tarahs evaporated.

Deathclaw opened his eyes. He scowled as if his fun had been ended and slid his sword back into its sheath. “Next time I will puzzle it out.”

Edge and Jhonate slid down from Gwyrtha’s back and strode towards Tarah. The named warrior was regarding her with curiosity more than anger. “Did you know that the Protector of the Grove is looking for you?”

“It has been that kind of day,” Tarah said resignedly. “He’s been ignoring me for days, but as soon as I poke my head out the door he wants to talk to me.”

“Is this what you call ‘poking your head out the door’?” Jhonate asked. “Sneaking off to the Jharro Grove? You are most fortunate that you did not enter. If you had, the elves would have killed you.”

“Yeah, I was just on my way back from there,” Tarah said, raising her arm to show them the Jharro bracelet. “You’re right. They did try to kill me. But the Prophet stopped them and now I have to train my magic with Tolynn every day.”

“Tolynn?” Jhonate said. “She is taking on a trainee?”

“Wait, the Prophet was there?” Edge asked.

“Hello, Gwyrtha. Do you remember me?” said a child’s voice.

Everyone turned around in surprise. The elf child had reappeared and was standing in front of Gwyrtha, reaching out to touch the rogue horse’s nose. Gwyrtha sniffed at her and cocked her large lizard-like head.

“Who is that elf child and why is she dressed like one of my people?” Jhonate asked in surprise.

“Gwyrtha says it’s an illusion,” said Sir Edge.

“It’s Esmine,” Tarah said, surprised that the rogue horse was showing herself to the others. “She doesn’t like appearing as her true self. Or, who she used to be. The child thing is new.”

The little girl turned her face towards them. “John said I should try talking to everyone. That way I won’t be so bored.” She looked back at Gwyrtha. “Remember how we used to play in the big field behind father’s shed?”

“Uh, she can’t talk back to you,” Edge said. “But she does remember you. She says that she thought you were dead.”

“I am,” the little girl responded and patted the top of Gwyrtha’s head again.

They traveled back to Roo-Tan’lan and Esmine’s illusionary elf child rode Gwyrtha’s back the whole way. Deathclaw walked beside them, trying to attune his senses to the rogue horse’s magic. Sir Edge and Jhonate peppered Tarah with questions along the way, forcing her to recount her experience in the grove.

Each of them brought their own angle to the interrogation. Jhonate seemed to be bothered that Tarah had gotten away without execution, while Edge seemed more frustrated that the Prophet hadn’t stayed around long enough to talk to him. He particularly didn’t like John’s insinuation that major players were going to die during the fight. Many of those that the Prophet considered major players were his friends.

Tarah was mainly focused on trying to answer their questions without giving away too many personal details. She had so much difficulty with it that twice along the way Esmine offered to create a diversion so that she could escape. Though the offer was quite tempting, Tarah made herself decline. As nice as it would be to disappear out from under their noses, she was counting on these two to be allies.

They arrived at the palace to find that the guards were in a state of high alert. Elder Qelvyn had vanished from his rooms and a full search was going on for the merman ambassador. Tarah was summoned to speak with the Protector at once. She asked Esmine to stay inconspicuous until her meeting with him was done. The little girl grumbled, but stayed by Gwyrtha’s side.

Xedrion bin Leeths was in the visitor’s section of the palace standing in the hallway outside of the ambassador’s rooms. It was only the second time Tarah had met the man in person. He had a stern countenance similar to his daughter Jhonate’s, and his piercing green eyes seemed to analyze everything they fell upon. At that moment they were focused on Tarah and they were not kind.

“I am not pleased with your actions this morning, Miss Woodblade. I left specific orders with you and your party that you were not to enter the grove. If I had not just received word that Tolynn has taken charge of you, you would be facing a disciplinary council. Believe me, I would not have been as lenient as the Prophet was!”

“I understand, sir, and I apologize,” Tarah replied. She still felt everyone was overreacting, but now wasn’t the time to bring that up.

Xedrion nodded and his expression went from angry to merely focused. “However, at the moment, I require your assistance. You may have heard that our merman guest has left us. I understand that you can pick up thoughts from tracks?”

“I can,” Tarah replied.

“Then I want to know what he was thinking and where he went and why,” Xedrion said. “As much as you can tell me. His door is the one at the end of the hall.”

“I’ll see what I can find.” Tarah crouched and looked at the polished floor. The servants in the palace kept the floors remarkably clean, which was helpful in this case. She could see the light outline of every foot print booted or barefooted.

“I take it your men have been running up and down this hallway while they were looking for him?” she asked

“They have,” the Protector admitted.

“That’s not ideal. If someone steps on a track, they replace that memory with their own.” Many of the prints were overlapping. The barefooted tracks were likely left by servants. The Roo-Tan warriors Tarah had seen wore boots or shoes. “What kind of shoes was the ambassador wearing?”

Xedrion frowned as if unsure, but Jhonate spoke up. “They were sandals of some kind. With wooden bottoms. They made a clacking sound when he walked.”

“Good. That would leave a distinctive print.” Tarah moved slowly down the hallway, touching a print or two to make sure. The prints mostly belonged to worried soldiers wondering how the merman had gotten away. Then she saw it, a striated pattern. She touched several of them. “This is him. He was worried. Something you said in a meeting earlier caught him off guard. He was rushing into the room intending to leave.”

“Do you know what bit of information bothered him?” asked Sir Edge.

“Not yet,” Tarah replied. She stopped in front of the door and looked back at them. “I guess your men have been all through his room as well?”

“They have looked through it,” the Protector said. “But I told them not to touch anything until I arrived.”

“Let’s see, shall we?” Tarah said. She touched the outside of the door, but felt no memories of interest. “Would you mind staying outside until I’m finished looking around?”

The Protector agreed and Tarah opened the door inward. Esmine’s elf child stood there with her finger to her lips. Tarah let the door shut behind her before the others saw.

I thought you weren’t gonna show yourself in here, Tarah said mentally.

“They won’t hear me or see me unless I want them to,” the little girl assured her. “Do you want me to make your voice quiet too?”

Just don’t show yourself to the others, Tarah replied, frowning. And why is it even necessary for you to show yourself to me at all right now? You’re in the staff in my hands for mud’s sake.

“I like this new form,” the child said, sticking out her lower lip in a cute little pout. “I want to use it.”

Fine, but I have a job to do. Will you please try not to be disruptive? Tarah asked.

“I won’t be!” she promised.

Tarah started her search of the room. Once again, the cleanliness of the servants in the palace made things easier. She went over every available surface, looking for traces of the merman’s thoughts. She didn’t have to look hard. They were everywhere. He had been a ‘guest’ in the palace for quite some time and had spent most of it confined to this room.

This made the memories a bit jumbled, but eventually, a clear picture began to form in Tarah’s mind. Esmine’s elf child form followed her around as she went through the closet, the washroom, and the bedroom, finally stopping at one of the meshed windows.

She looked at the little girl. Esmine, will you continue to keep yourself hidden from the others? I know you want to interact with people, but just for now while I’m telling them what I found. I don’t need to complicate things having to explain you again too.

The little girl pouted again.

I’ll tell you what, Tarah suggested. Djeri, Cletus, and Willum are probably nearby in your range, right?

“Still in their rooms,” the girl said. “Djeri’s pacing around and Cletus is doing tricks with his chain.”

Why don’t you appear to them and tell them what’s going on? I’m sure they’ll be nice and confused.

The little girl grew a devilish smile at the idea and disappeared with a tiny pop.

Tarah sighed and opened the door, calling the others into the room. “Well, I found out where he’s gone off to.” She pointed at the window. It was about three feet by three feet and covered with a thin fabric mesh to keep the insects out. “Out and down.”

The Protector walked over and looked outside. “There is quite a long drop here and the mesh is still intact.”

“Yeah, but he used magic of some sort,” Tarah explained. “It had something to do with special water he kept in his skin? I don’t know for sure. That part wasn’t clear. But he somehow mushed his body through the screen and went plop into the canal below.”

“Did you learn anything about his intentions?” Jhonate asked.

“He’s a sly fellow, that one,” Tarah said, thumbing through the memories in her mind. “The whole time he’s been here, he’s been thinking of ways he could manipulate the Protector.”

“He did claim to be an ambassador,” Edge suggested. “That pretty much describes his job.”

“In what way was he seeking to manipulate me?” Xedrion asked.

“It’s not all clear. I just catch glimpses,” she reminded him. “But from what I gathered, he’s been trying to get you to agree to meet with his people. Some sort of treaty. He thought about the word treaty quite a bit.”

“Yes, but is it legitimate?” Jhonate asked.

“In his mind it is,” Tarah replied. “He thinks it’s very important.”

“Does he think to trap me at this meeting?” Xedrion asked. He was still looking out the window at the canal below, his face thoughtful.

Tarah scratched her head. “I don’t know. He just wanted to make sure and convince you to go when the time was right. He wasn’t thinking about murder or anything like that, though he did think about maiming the cooks. He really hates the taste of cooked bananas.”

“If he was so sincere about his job, then why did he leave?” the Protector wondered.

“Well, I did find this,” Tarah said, holding out a letter that had been folded and sealed with wax. “It was under his mattress. He thought that you wouldn’t find it until the servants cleaned the room later today. I didn’t read it, but his feelings when he was holding it were sincere.”

The Protector took the letter and broke the seal. As he read it a worried look appeared on his face. He folded it back up.

“What did he say, Father?” Jhonate asked.

“He says that he figured he had accomplished everything here that he was going to accomplish and he was suspicious that I wasn’t likely to let him go,” Xedrion said. “He adds that he has gone to warn his people about the demon army that is approaching and that he will contact me again once his people are ready to sign the treaty.”

“May I touch the inside of the letter, sir?” Tarah asked. “The ink won’t tell me much, but wherever he touched it with his hands . . .” The Protector handed it over to her and Tarah ran her fingers down the page. A slight smile hit her face. “This last part, where he says he meant to warn his people about the demons? He was lying about that. He already knew that they were coming. Is that the information that you gave him this morning?”

“It was,” Xedrion said.

“Then that’s it,” Tarah replied. “His surprise was that Aloysius was here so quickly. He wanted to go back to his people so that he could receive new instructions.”

The Protector cocked his head at her. “You are sure of this?”

“Yes! I mean, he didn’t think those exact thoughts specifically, but when I add all the pieces together it fits. He was waiting for something and when you told him that the army was coming, he knew it was time.”

“Perhaps you are right,” Xedrion said. He took the letter from her and folded it back up before slipping it into his pocket. “But we have no proof that his treaty isn’t real.”

“We know that Aloysius wants to conquer the grove and the ambassador wants to go and speak to him. That has to be part of his plans,” Tarah insisted.

“You did not see that exact thought coming from the ambassador,” Xedrion said. “I can see why you make those assumptions, but I need conclusive proof!”

“But sir, I already know that Aloysius is evil. I’ve seen what he does!” Tarah said.

“That will be enough for now, Miss Woodblade. We have time to verify all your theories,” he replied, his voice steady, but tinged with anger at being challenged by a relative stranger.

“Of course, sir,” Tarah said, bowing her head. She wanted to keep yelling until he got it through his thick skull, but she couldn’t afford to push him further. Not yet. She would find that proof he was looking for and then he would see that crushing Aloysius was the best way for him to make sure that the grove was safe.

“Then what do we do now, father?” Jhonate asked.

“We will continue to gather information from our spies among the Roo-Dan,” Xedrion said. “We can also have Miss Woodblade examine the tracks of their troops. By the time this ‘Mer-Dan Collective’ sends word that this treaty is ready, we will have a better idea how to react.”

Sir Edge cleared his throat. “Um, Protector sir, Gwyrtha says that Hilt and Beth are here. They are heading this way to meet us.”

“Very well,” said Xedrion. “I suppose we should go out and greet them. I have been wanting to speak with Hilt anyway.”

“Oh, this is the Beth I’m supposed to train with?” Tarah asked.

“That would be her,” Jhonate replied.

Sir Edge raised an eyebrow. “You haven’t seen her yet? I assumed that since you were from Pinewood that she would have come to visit you by now.”

“What does Pinewood have to do with it?” Tarah wondered

“Alright, where is Tarah Woodblade?” echoed a female voice from out in the hallway.

They stepped outside of the room and Tarah’s eyes widened in surprise. “Beth Puddle?”

Tarah had known this woman since before her father died. Beth and her husband had always been kind to them and had fed them a few times when they were in town. She had even sent business Tarah’s way after Grampa Rolf died when Tarah was still building her reputation as a guide. She looked good, much better than the last time Tarah had seen her. Which was a good thing, since Tarah had thought she was dead.

“Tarah Woodblade, the hero of Pinewood!” Beth proclaimed, walking towards her with arms outstretched. A sandy haired gentleman with swords on each hip was walking behind her. He was holding a red-headed baby in his arms.

Beth embraced Tarah, then pulled back, beaming. “The survivors from town told me all about what you did for them during the war.”

“They exaggerated,” Tarah assured her, returning her smile. “I must say that you are the last person I thought I would see in Malaroo.”

“Oh, that’s right. You have been out of the loop, haven’t you?” Beth said. “I’m sorry I hadn’t been by to see you here sooner. Since Hilt has been staying away from Xedrion’s meetings, we haven’t been getting news very quickly.”

Tarah shook her head in disbelief. “Did you know that the Pinewood mayor hired me to track you down after you went missing? Followed your tracks to the edge of the dark forest before they disappeared. It was the first time I ever lost a quarry.” Tarah didn’t add that she had read suicidal thoughts in Beth’s tracks that day. Beth had intended to go and fight the mother of the moonrats bare handed and hadn’t expected to survive.

“And did the great Tarah Woodblade end up admitting that to the mayor?” Beth asked in amusement.

“I ended up telling the mayor that you had met some stranger and run off with him,” Tarah admitted. “How did you end up here?”

Beth smiled. “Well, to make a long story short, I met a stranger and I ran off with him.”

The man that had come in with her chuckled. “And in the middle of that she discovered she had spirit magic powers, helped save the grove and helped win the war against Ewzad Vriil and the moonrat mother.”

“Don’t forget the part where we adopted a child,” Beth said chidingly. “Tarah, this is my husband, Sir Hilt and our daughter, Sherl-Ann.”

“Hello,” Tarah said, noticing the naming rune on the back of the man’s hand for the first time.

Beth put her hands on her hips. “Now I understand that Tolynn has decided that I am to take you on as a pupil?”

“Something like that,” Tarah replied hesitantly. “She said she’s too busy to teach me everything herself. So I’m supposed to spend time with both of you.”

“Yes, well she certainly didn’t think it prudent to ask me first.” Beth said with faux irritation. “I suppose I owe her a favor though.” She gave Tarah an assessing look. “You don’t mind me listening to you do you?”

“You mean that thing where you lift my arms and-.” Beth grasped Tarah’s arms and lifted them into the air and poked and prodded her a bit before placing an ear against Tarah’s chest. “. . . do this thing,”

Beth’s listening took longer than Tolynn’s had and when the woman pulled back, she had a calculating look on her face. “You know, Tarah, you’re not in as bad a situation as you think. You do have some rather hard decisions coming up, though.”

Tarah wondered what the woman had seen. What situation was Beth talking about and what decisions did she have coming? Before Tarah could ask her, the woman was speaking again.

“Hilt, I feel good about this one. I think I’ll put her in the guest house out back. We’ll need to ask our neighbors if we can borrow some spare reed beds.”

“Excuse me?” Tarah said.

“Well, you’re gonna be a very busy woman for a while,” Beth replied in explanation. “Tolynn’s going to want you all morning long and I’m certain Xedrion’s going to need you at whatever time of the day for this and that, which means I’m gonna have to find time somewhere in the middle. Therefore, you’re staying at my place.”

Tarah opened her mouth, but Beth raised a quick hand. “Before you protest, my house is much closer to the grove and it’s a whole lot less stuffy and boring than this palace. Oh, and I’ll be taking in your friends too. The ones that want to come, that is.”

“You saw about them when you were ‘listening’ to me?”

“Sure,” she said gesturing absently. “Willum and the gnome warrior and the dwarf you’re in love with. Don’t worry. They’re welcome. Hilt can always use some sparring partners and they can pay me back by helping around the house.”

“Do I get a say in this?” Hilt asked.

Beth looked back over her shoulder at him. “You married me.”

Hilt sighed and looked at Xedrion. The Protector shrugged. “Do not look to me for help. I have seven wives of my own.”

“And I picked you for a friend,” Hilt grumbled.

“The best I can do is take you away for a few minutes,” Xedrion suggested. “Beth, I need to speak with your husband about something. Come, Hilt.”

“Sure,” Hilt said. He turned to Beth and held out the child. “Looks like I have a meeting.”

Beth rolled her eyes and took Sherl-Ann from him. The baby didn’t seem to care which parent she was with, yawning during the transfer. “Don’t you be too late now, understand me?”

“Just a moment. Sir Hilt, before you go?” said Sir Edge, catching the attention of Beth’s new husband. He gave Hilt and Beth a proud smile. “I wish to announce to both of you that the Protector has approved my marriage to Jhonate.”

A wide smile split Hilt’s face. “He has?” He glanced over at Xedrion, who smiled and nodded. “Ha!” Hilt said. He embraced Sir Edge and Jhonate in turn. “I am so happy for you two. Have you decided when this is going to happen?”

“There are several complications to iron out,” Sir Edge replied. “My family is far away and so is Fist. I would want them to be here for it.”

“And it will have to wait until this situation on our border is resolved,” Xedrion added.

Beth giggled. “Oh, I am so excited! Just a second, I’m gonna hug you two! Here, Tarah.” She thrust the baby into Tarah’s arms.

“Wait,” Tarah said, wincing, but it was too late. The moment she grasped the child, its memories flooded her mind. It was a far different experience than seeing the memories of the ancient trees. This child was less than a year old and its senses weren’t fully developed. The result was that, instead of flying by at lightning speed, her memories were vivid and slightly distorted.

First came a memory of being in the arms of a raving woman whose face was streaked with tears. Then a nightmarish creature with cat-like eyes and puffy lips appeared and covered it with kisses. That face was replaced by kind eyes that Tarah recognized right away as belonging to the Prophet. This child had spent quite some time with him before ending up in the arms of Beth and Hilt.

When it was over, Tarah stared at the baby in astonishment. She had seen a very similar set of memories not long ago, from the child Coalvin back in Coal’s Keep. She looked to Beth, who had just finished embracing the betrothed couple. “Beth, th-this baby . . . I just saw-.”

Beth slid over and placed her hand on Tarah’s shoulder. “Don’t say everything you know, dear.”

“Right,” Tarah said, wondering what it was that made these two babies so special and why the Prophet would have gone to all the trouble of bringing them to separate mothers in different countries. She looked into Sherl-Ann’s clear blue eyes. “None of my business anyway.”

Beth threw her arm around Tarah’s shoulder and gave her a squeeze. “Oh, we are going to learn a lot together, you and I.”

Chapter Fourteen

The Troll King sat in the Lone Chair and looked out over the swamp lake before him. The air in Solitude was still. The thick canopy of vegetation surrounding the lake was a barrier to the wind and kept out the sounds of his people working in the city beyond. The only sounds here were the occasional frog chirp and the odd caws of the lalas, long-necked birds with bright green plumage who subsisted primarily on tad poles and the few species of fish that could survive among the slime-infested waters.

Of course, all that was changing now. The trollkin had managed to unclog the ancient series of canals that had once been the streets of KhanzaRoo. The ancient Roo capital was once again being flooded with fresh clean water.

Every day, the city became cleaner as more channels were opened. He could already see the results here in the lake of Solitude. He smiled at the thought of how much less troll slime there was than before. Of course, the Troll Swamps would never be completely cleared, but the Troll King could now imagine the day when KhanzaRoo was once more the great city it had once been.

A peace settled over him at that thought. For a few brief minutes, the weight of his responsibilities eased and he was able to forget that he was a king. He was able to simply exist. He reflected on the beauty of the lake, unbothered by the fact that the womb of the Troll Mother lurked just beneath its calm surface. For that short period of time it was as if he were human again.

The thought startled him and he shook his head, the peaceful moment gone. Human again? What had that meant? He raised his hands and looked at them. Both had the same greenish tint to their skin, but his left hand was long-fingered and wickedly clawed, the hand of a troll, while his right hand was squat fingered and powerful, the hand of a human. Was this the reason for the thought?

He searched his memories for an understanding, but there was nothing to explain it. He was only ever trollkin. He had been born their king. As for why his body was partly human, any time he had presented this question to the Mother, her only response had been an outpouring of love and an assurance that things were as they should be.

“Murtha,” he said, calling to the part-dwarf who stood just a few paces to his right, her form still and silent.

The trollkin female jerked, startled from a reverie of her own. “Yes, my k-king?”

“I am disturbed, my friend,” he said.

“You, my k-king?” she asked, surprise in her voice.

The king frowned. He rarely expressed his doubts to the other trollkin, after all as king he should be the rock, unyielding in his convictions. But this was Murtha, one of the few members of his people that was willing to question him. It was the main reason he had decided to keep her at his side.

“I just had a thought, almost a dream,” he began.

“A dream?” Murtha asked. She turned to face him, her gray eyes curious. “Was it about the hunger?”

“No,” he said. Though he understood why she might think so. All of the trollkin struggled with the hunger; the desire to consume any living thing they came upon. The feeling was voracious and constant and some struggled with it more than others. The cravings were strongest when waking. The king understood that this was because of the trollish part of their makeup, though he didn’t understand why this was so. “No, my dream had to do with being human.”

She looked down, a little embarrassed. “Sometimes I dream that I am a dwarf. Well, part dwarf and part human. But in these dreams there is no hunger and none of me is troll.”

“Truly?” he said. “What happens in these dreams?”

“I . . . do not know, my k-king,” she said. “It seems so glorious, but then I wake-k and I am so hungry that I forget everything.”

“I see,” he said thoughtfully. “Perhaps that is for the best. Surely such dreams would only bring you discomfort.”

She cocked her head. “K-king . . . have you ever seen a human?”

“Y-. . .” he blinked back at her. “No. I have only ever seen the trollkin and the creatures that live around us.”

“Then how do you know what a human is? How do you know what they look-k like-k?” she asked.

He pondered this for a moment. He knew the answers he usually gave to these questions, but they weren’t quite ringing true in his mind. “The Mother taught me this thing in the womb.”

“Have you ever eaten pepperbean stew?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “But I have no knowledge of this thing.”

“I do,” Murtha said. Her eyes looked troubled as she tried to explain. “I have never made it. I have no memory of eating it. But . . . I know how to make-k it! I know what things to put in it. I know what it tastes like-k. I know how it would feel on my tongue and how it would burn on the way down.” Drool dripped from the edge of her mouth and she swallowed hastily. “Why do I know this, k-king?”

“The same reason,” the Troll King said, though it sounded like a lie in his throat. “The Mother gave you this knowledge.”

“Why would she do this?” Murtha asked. “I understand why it would be good for us to know what a human was if we ever saw one, but why this? How does knowing how to make pepperbean stew help me?”

“Maybe it is a good recipe to know. Maybe you should make it to help our people,” he suggested. Surely that was it. The Mother had a reason.

“But I also know that the ingredients do not grow here,” she said, sounding more and more distressed as each bit of illogical knowledge added up. “I could maybe get them from C-Corntown, but why do I know about C-Corntown when I do not know where it is c-compared to here?”

The king didn’t know how to help her with this series of questions. “I . . .”

“My king!” shouted a panicked voice.

The Troll King stood and turned as Khurley, one of his trollkin guards, ran into Solitude, his face frantic. “A fire!”

A spark of fear shot up his spine. Fire was the biggest danger the Trollkin faced. Well over half of their population exuded flammable slime. Even those that didn’t were still vulnerable if one of the flammable mist clouds that wandered the Troll Swamps was passing through the city when a fire started. It also didn’t help that, despite the cleanup efforts of his people, there were still many pools of old slime water in the city.

“Where?” he asked.

“In the old hospital!” Khurley answered.

The Troll King ran along the bank towards the path that led to the city, Murtha and Khurley at his heels. He shouted back over his shoulder, “Murtha, gather those trollkin that aren’t flammable! Khurley, get everyone else inside a stone building!”

Of course, they already knew what to do. They had instituted protocols regarding what to do in case of fire on the day they had arrived at the city. The trollkin were too promising a new race for him to let them be wiped out because of a stray lightning strike or a fire caused by humans somewhere else in the swamps.

“We already started!” Khurley assured him. “Recks has gone to get Mellinda.”

“Good!” the Troll King replied. “Perhaps her magic can help.”

The snake woman had been more than useful to his people so far. The Mother’s birthrate had doubled since the woman’s arrival and Mellinda was able to save most of them. There were still those born with the souls of lesser creatures, most of whom were simply released into the swamps or eaten. But just about any deformity could be fixed. The only thing she couldn’t repair was insanity.

Murtha gurgled in irritation. The part-dwarf had a deep distrust for the woman and she wasn’t the only one. Several of the king’s closest servants, including the First had recently warned the king that she was gaining too much power among the people.

The Troll King understood why they were concerned. In addition to fixing the newly born, the snake woman had taken to visiting the rest of the people in the city, offering to heal them of their deformities. Most of the people she repaired were extremely grateful and Mellinda had gained a good number of hangers-on. The trollkin waited on her hand and foot and she seemed to enjoy the attention immensely.

In the Troll King’s mind, the benefits of the woman’s presence far outweighed any risks. He told anyone with concerns that, until the Mother told him otherwise, Mellinda was welcome to as many helpers as she wanted. Thanks to her, the trollkin were flourishing.

If they survive this fire, he thought as he rounded a corner in the path and the trees opened up. A column of smoke rose from the center of the city. The Troll King ran straight towards the fire while Murtha and Khurley split off to make sure that his instructions were followed.

The Mother had blessed the king with strength and speed to go with his long body and he used them well. The king took the most direct route possible, bolting down streets and bounding over canals with long leaps, though the ever shifting nature of the grass islands meant that there were a few times he was forced to swim across. He shouted directions at trollkin he passed along the way, many of whom had frozen, staring with terrified wonder at the smoke.

Every street and canal he traversed reminded him how far his people needed to go. Many parts of the city were still overgrown and caked with slime and most of the sections that had been cleared were either bare grassy islands or contained wooden buildings in various stages of construction. It all seemed so tenuous and he instinctively wanted to fix all of it. But that wasn’t his immediate concern.

The king grimaced as the hospital finally came into view. The hospital, like the other stone buildings that had survived the centuries, had been made of enormous stone blocks and erected in pyramidal form. How the ancient Roo had accomplished this feat, the king had no idea. It was the third largest building that the trollkin had uncovered after the palace and the library.

There were four entrances and smoke was belching from three of them. The Troll King swore, the word that came out carrying no meaning in his mind. Originally, the ancient Roo had used the hospital to treat injury and disease. The trollkin, with their healing abilities had no need for such a place. They had repurposed the building, using the multiple rooms inside for housing, mostly for the people that exuded flammable slime. He hoped no one had been trapped inside.

To his relief, the protocols he had put in place had been followed precisely. Non-flammable trollkin had cleared away all with combustible slime and were using clean water from the canals to wash away all slime trails leading up to the building. Thankfully, there were no gaseous mists in the city that day.

He approached one of the trollkin that was standing outside, directing the others. He was taller than average for a Trollkin and had the pointed ears and fair features that marked him as being part elf. “Recks! Khurley told me that you had gone to find the snake woman.”

“I did, King. Mellinda is inside now,” Recks said, pointing to the one entrance that was free of smoke. He had become one of the snake woman’s dearest companions and his voice carried a trace of her arrogance.

The king ignored his tone. “Is there anyone else still inside?”

Recks shrugged. “The fat one, Julal, thinks his wife is still in their room.”

The king glanced towards a nearby island where chubby Julal, a part human trollkin with a rat-like tail, stood. He was yelling out his wife’s name and two other trollkin had been forced to restrain him to keep him from going in after her.

Marriage among the trollkin was a relatively new concept. The males and females had begun pairing off almost right away, but Julal and his wife Melane had been the first to approach the king and ask to be wed. Once he had agreed, several more couples had come forward requesting it.

The king cupped his hands to the sides of his mouth and shouted. “Worry, not, Julal! I will find her for you!” He turned and faced one of the smoking entrances. If he remembered correctly, it held the shortest route to his destination.

“No,” said Recks disapprovingly. “You are the king. You are too important to risk for the like of one of us.”

“The fire will not claim my life,” the king promised. Though Julal had not been born with flammable slime, his wife had. The chance that she could be saved was slim, but the king had to try.

He ran up the stairs towards the entrance and dashed in. One of the odd idiosyncrasies of the ancient Roo construction was the height of the passageways inside the pyramids. Though the Roo had been of average height for a human people, their buildings had been constructed with ceilings over eight feet high and most passageways were wide enough that three humans could have travelled them walking abreast of each other. This gave him plenty of room to hunch over and keep his head under the smoke that flowed along the ceiling.

One of the fire protocols that had been instituted required the hallways of all buildings to be washed clean of slime trails daily. The people had kept to this rule with strict obedience and was likely the reason that the fire had not spread quicker. The same rule had not been issued for the interiors of the trollkin’s rooms, mainly because it would have been too difficult to enforce. This had led to a slime build up on the floors of the rooms.

The Troll King came across several rooms that were fully ablaze. He stayed to the far side of the hall as he passed them, but a few peeks inside told him the reason why. Flaming strings of slime dribbled from tiny gaps in the stone ceiling. The fire had started on the floor above.

When he finally reached the room he was looking for, the king saw why Julal’s wife hadn’t left the building. Tiny driblets of fire fell from the crease in the stone above her doorway.

“Help!” coughed a weak voice from within. “Is someone out there?”

“Melane?” The Troll King came as close to the room as he dared and peered inside.

“King!” the woman gasped in surprise. Her beady trollish eyes were puffy with tears and gleamed orange with reflected flames. Melane was considered a beauty because, unlike most trollkin, her hair was a light auburn and her skin a deep brown.

She was crouching in the far corner of the room, surrounded by a puddle of slime, her face blackened with smoke, but unburned. He saw that she had smartly used animal skins to scrape her slime away from the fire that dripped in her doorway. She had gained herself some time, but the flaming substance was pooling on the floor and spreading her way. Soon it would touch the pool around her and she would be immolated.

“Melane,” he said. “Stay where you are, but stand. Be ready to run when I give you the command.” He eyed the doorway. This would be a delicate maneuver.

“But King, you must go,” she said, her eyes full of fright. “I am not worth the danger.”

“This fire will not kill me,” he assured her. This was the second time he had said that phrase. He did not understand why he was so confident. He had never tested himself against fire and though he could sense the strength or weakness in the others of his people, he was blind when it came to his own abilities. He trusted in the Mother that she had given him the power to survive this.

Keeping his jaw clenched, he reached for the dripping section of Melane’s doorway. He swept the flaming droplets aside with his clawed hand and pressed his forearm firmly against the crack. The fiery slime clung to his skin, but his own slime did not ignite.

He ignored his burning skin and reached out with his left foot, trying to push aside the flaming slime that had puddled in the doorway. He was not as successful with this attempt. It flowed back as soon as he scraped it away. Fire licked at his feet and between his toes. The slime from the crack above began to leak over his forearm and drip on his shoulder. His body was healing the damage almost as quickly as it was done, but he still grunted with the searing pain.

He scraped faster with his foot, moving as much of the slime as he could and cried out, “Now! Go! Keep to the right side of the passage until you get out!”

Melane obeyed, darting from the corner and he squeezed to the side of the doorframe, giving her room to scoot through. Once she was safely in the hallway, he cried out and released his hold on the crack. He stepped out in the hallway with her just as a droplet fell and hit the back of his human hand.

Flames erupted along his skin. He realized that the Mother had not made him completely exempt from this particular weakness. Soon the right side of his body was engulfed in fire.

Melane backed away from him, her eyes filled with grief and horror. “K-king!”

“Ruun!” he shouted.

She did so, running as fast as her legs would carry her but the king, who was much faster, was forced to hold back. He knew that if he even brushed against her in his rush to escape, she would not survive.

The king had never imagined a pain such as this. Every nerve on the right side of his body cried out. Again, his tremendous ability to heal fought back against the heat, but it was a losing battle. The attempt to heal made the pain worse. He felt every nerve that was extinguished as each layer of his skin cooked. He could even feel the liquid around his eye boil as his eyelid burned away.

Finally, Melane dove through the exit and got out of his way. The king barreled past her. The trollkin watching the blaze cried out in alarm as their king ran screaming down the steps, his human half ablaze.

At the very first possible moment, he dove into the canal. The cool water extinguished the fire, but not the pain. Raw and rebuilding nerves cried out at exposure to the water. He came up gasping and climbed out as quickly as he could.

Julal ran to his wife and threw his arms around her. “Thank you, King! Thank you!”

Melane’s gaze was turned onto the king as she sobbed. “I am so sorry!”

“No, Melane. Don’t worry about your king,” he said, despite the pain. He realized that his people were staring at him in awe now and he forced himself to look back at them calmly as his body’s regenerative properties worked to heal the damage. He raised the raw red flesh of his right arm into the air and cried out. “We are trollkin! We are strong! We survive!”

His people raised their arms in the air and roared in agreement, proud of their King and grateful that he lived.

“A beautiful speech, my king!” said a sultry female voice. “I am so glad that you are alive.”

The vision in his human eye was cloudy, but the heat vision in his left eye told him that the voice belonged to Mellinda. Three beefy trollkin stood with her as well as the more slender form of Recks.

The snake woman curtseyed on her wavering legs. “For a moment there I thought the fire had ended you.”

“The Troll Mother would not make me so weak,” he said. “I see that you escaped the building unscathed. I thought you had gone in to fight the fire.”

“Oh, I was doing much more than that, my king,” she cooed. “But you are right. It is time this ended.”

Mellinda turned towards the smoking building. Her snake-like arms waved and her fingers writhed. Columns of water rose from the surrounding canals and rushed into the hospital’s entrances. Steam joined the smoke rising from the building. She bared her teeth in concentration and water continued to flow in until the steam stopped and water leaked from between almost every stone.

Then she threw her arms down, ending the spell. Water, dark with ash, gushed from all four entrances, pouring across the grass and back into the canals to be swept away by the current. The crowd’s roar at this feat was even greater than with the king’s short speech. She laughed and waved back at them, basking in their praise.

The king watched the whole thing with a mind in turmoil. Perhaps it was just that his nerves were still in agony and his flesh itched madly in places, but he felt anger rise within him. Surely he should have been pleased that the woman ended the fire, but something didn’t seem right. Why had she been in there so long?

Mellinda noticed the look on his face. The smile of triumph slid from her face, replaced by a repentant look. “I am sorry, my king. That does look painful. Should I have offered to heal you first?”

“Why did you not extinguish the fire sooner?” he asked.

“Recks told me that you were inside, my King,” she explained. “I was fearful that you might drown if I cast my spell then.”

“K-King!” cried Murtha, just arriving at the scene. She leapt across a narrow section of the canal and rushed up to him aghast to see him in such a state. “What happened to you?”

He raised a hand to silence the part-dwarf, his gaze still focused on the snake woman. The vision in his right eye had cleared and he noticed that, though the trollkin with her were blackened with soot, there wasn’t so much as a trace of it on her.

He cocked his head. “You were here before I, Snake Woman. Why did you not cast your spell before I arrived?”

The large trollkin that stood around her frowned at his tone. These three were part-humans that had once been terribly deformed. Mellinda had fixed them and continued to make changes as they requested them. All three of these trollkin now looked more human than troll, something which had not bothered the king until now.

Mellinda gave him a simpering smile. “As I alluded to before, I went inside to discover something important. The source.”

“Of the flames?” he asked. He had been curious as to how the blaze started.

She inclined her head. “Yes, my king. And the answer told me far more than I expected.”

He cocked his head. “Explain.”

She came close to him and placed a hand on his trollish arm. His nerves cried out and the Troll King realized that he had forgotten all about the minor burns on that side of his body. She leaned up towards his ear. “This blaze was started by magic.”

“You did this?” he said in surprise.

“Of course not,” she said with an unconvincing laugh. “That magic came from one of your people.”

“Thurgle,” one of the beefy trollkin added.

The Troll King frowned as much as his damaged face would allow. Thurgle was a relatively new born trollkin, a part-human with a frog-like face. “How is that possible?”

“He had an awakening,” she said, watching his face for a reaction. When she didn’t see any recognition of the term, she added, “That is what we wizards call it when a person uses magic for the first time. The results can often be . . . messy. In this case, Thurgle immolated himself. It was quite sad.”

“You are sure of this?” he said, quite shaken by the idea.

“Oh yes,” she said. “I arrived far too late to save him, of course, but . . .” She pointed to her eyes. “My mage sight told me everything.”

His eyelid had grown back enough for him to blink in concern. He was imagining trollkin across the city randomly bursting into flame. “Could this happen again?”

“It is unlikely, but possible,” she said, then licked her lips and gave him an aside glance. “Perhaps if I better understood how your people are made, I could figure out how to prevent it.”

“We are made by the Mother,” he said automatically. “You have seen it happen. We come forth from her womb fully formed.”

“I have seen that, darling king,” she said as if he had told a joke. “What I would like to know is how she does it.”

He could tell she was hinting at something, but didn’t know what. “You know as much as I. You have seen inside of every trollkin you have fixed with your magic.”

Her smile seemed a bit forced now. “Yes, but you have a connection with the Troll Mother that I do not. When the children come from the womb, you touch them and immediately know their strengths and weaknesses and more.”

What was she searching for? “It is a gift given me by the Mother. When I touch them, I know things. It is her way of helping me know which of her children can become trollkin.”

“Ah!” she said, raising one twisting finger. “I believe you are close to the answer I am seeking. Think back to the day when Thurble was born.”

“His name was Thurgle,” he corrected, becoming irritated with this line of questioning. Many of the nearby trollkin had gathered closer to hear the discussion and he wasn’t sure this was something he wanted them to hear.

“Thurgle, then,” she said with a frustrated smile. “You said something when he was born. You touched him and said something like, ‘this one has flammable skin, but will regenerate. He knows me. He has a . . ?”

“Human soul?” the Troll King finished.

“Right,” she said, still smiling. “Explain that.”

“All trollkin have souls,” he said matter of factly.

“But trolls don’t,” she said.

“They don’t?” Murtha said.

“No!” she said, looking around at the small crowd that had gathered. “Trolls are soulless hungry monsters. But you lot are not.”

“We know this,” the Troll King said, ready to end the conversation. “We are not trolls.”

“True. Oh, dears, I love you all, it’s true. You are not trolls. I came to the swamps expecting to find nothing but a mindless screaming hungry horde of trolls, but I found you instead.” There was a dull anger in her eyes now. “The question, oh king, is why you have that part that makes you different from them?”

He responded with anger of his own and this time it didn’t even hurt his face to frown. “We have souls because the Mother gave them to us, of course!”

“Yes, but where did she get them from?” Mellinda growled.

“Enough!” he shouted. “These questions stop. You come very close to blasphemy and I will not have you spouting such nonsense in front of my people!”

For a moment she met him glare-for-glare and he wondered if she was going to force him to kill her. From the looks on the faces of her burly trollkin followers, he thought he might have to kill them too. The crowd watching held their breath.

Suddenly all anger left her face. She curtseyed again, this time apologetically. “I am so sorry, King. I let myself get carried away. It’s just that I have been so absorbed in trying to find a way to stop something like this fire from happening.”

“That is a commendable goal,” he said hesitantly.

“I realize, though, that I need to seek answers to this elsewhere,” she added.

“What do you mean?” Murtha asked.

“My king, I need to travel away from here for a time,” Mellinda said.

“Away? Why?” he asked.

She smiled and stroked his arm. “To discover how to solve your fire problem once and for all. Now won’t that be nice?”

“What of the children birthed while you are gone?” he asked. “They will need your help.”

“Save the ones you can,” she said, putting on a sad face as she addressed the rest of the crowd. “Oh, I know we will lose a few, but if I am successful, not only will you not have to worry about fire, the Mother will birth more of your people than ever before!”

Once again, the snake woman soaked in the adoration of his people. This time the Troll King understood Murtha’s fears.

*          *          *

“I don’t understand,” Arcon said. “After all these years and all your experience manipulating people, why are you such a terrible actor?”

Excuse me? she asked in surprise.

“You came off as so deceitful back there,” he said. “There is no way he was fooled by your story.”

Nonsense. It was a perfectly good story. Besides, these people are nearly as stupid as trolls themselves.

“No, they’re not. As you proved today,” Arcon said.

She had come to Thurgle’s room curious because of the Troll King’s remark about him having a human soul. She wanted to inspect him further and had offered to use her magic to make his face less frog-like. The foul creature had been offended. She’d had no choice but to freeze him with a paralyzing spell and that’s when it had happened.

Flames had shot from Thurgle’s eyes, burning holes in her beautiful white dress. She had caught on fire. The whole damn room had caught on fire. Thank goodness she had reacted quickly. A frost shield had kept her from further harm while the rings had healed her and she had spent the next several minutes repairing that dress.

That wasn’t proof of non-stupidity. That was simply proof that the thing had a human soul, she replied.

“I’m not talking about him. I’m talking about the Troll King,” Arcon said. “He may be a bit naïve, but you pushed him pretty hard. He’s not going to easily go back to trusting you after that. Was it worth the answer to your silly question? Which you didn’t even get, I might add.”

It was a crucial question! She scowled. Still, you may be right. I’m pretty sure I have it figured out anyway. I was just hoping he would confirm it for me. Oh well, if things go right on this trip it won’t matter if he trusts me or not.

Arcon seemed pleased that she had admitted he was right for once. “So where are we going, Mellinda?”

Well, Sweet Arcon, it’s time I went and met with Scholar Aloysius. He is going to want to help me with this plan.

Chapter Fifteen

Willum scowled as the kobald sitting across the table from him, his “partner”, threw down a blue ‘AA’ card, taking the trick. The kobald snickered in triumph and began gathering the cards. It was squat and muscular, his skin covered in rock-like scales. Its head had an angular shape, with yellow eyes, a stub of a nose and a mouth with two large front fangs. As impressive as it looked, its personality was thin as paper; a caricature. Willum wondered if the imp had patterned it after a kobald he knew.

“Hah! Take that, Garson,” the kobald enthused. The dwarf that sat across from the imp grumbled and shoved his cards towards the kobald so it could deal the next hand. The kobald seemed to take great pleasure in its reaction. “See, Wilhelm? We will win this time!”

“It’s Willum,” Willum reminded him for perhaps the hundredth time since Theodore had started these game sessions. “And we were trying for a zero hand! You should have sluffed that card off a while ago!” Taking that trick had cost them a hundred points. He turned his scowl on the imp. “Why do you always partner me with this idiot?”

Lightning scattered through the smoky walls of the room and the accompanying roll of thunder punctuated the offended look on the kobald’s face. Big fat tears began to roll from its eyes. Willum groaned.

“Willy!” the imp chided as he reached over to pat the kobold on the shoulder.

Whereas both the dwarf and the kobald were wide, muscular creatures, the imp had thin arms and a potbelly. He was wearing clothes in the Roo-Tan warrior style, a breastplate that bulged out to contain the contour of his belly, and a pair of tan trousers. His thinning black hair had been tied into a single braid that ran down the side of his white face. The ribbon in it matched the yellow in his teeth. It wasn’t a good look for him.

“Be kind,” Theodore said. “Ho-ho! Bofus has a tender heart.”

The kobald sniffed in agreement and Willum rolled his eyes. “I’m just saying we play games at least three nights each week. Why not change partners once in a while?”

“Willy, Willy, Willy,” Theodore said, shaking his head. “I’m doing you a favor. Bofus is far more clever than Garson over there.”

The dwarf, who was wearing strange platemail that looked as if it were made of glued pottery shards, had raised his hand in front of his face and was staring at it. He waggled his fingers and chuckled. “Heh. Thumbs are like . . . the toes of the hand.”

“See?” the imp said.

“I still think this is a stupid game for us to play in here, Theodore,” Willum said. “I know that Unity is your favorite game, but there’s no way that you can prove to me you aren’t cheating.”

That was the trouble with spending time inside the axe while his body slept. He was in the imp’s territory. Everything that happened in this place was a construct of Theodore’s mind, including their partners. Theodore swore that he was able to separate the parts of his mind that controlled the additional players so that he didn’t know what their cards were, but Willum had his suspicions.

“Cheating?” The imp placed an offended hand on his chest. “Willy, you wound me. Ho! Why thanks to Bofus here, you win nearly as often as I do.”

Willum raised a finger. “Ah, but you are just smart enough to let me win from time-to-time just to fool me. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that I have yet to win a game when there are major stakes involved.”

“Major stakes! Ho-ho-ho!” His face grew serious. “Willy, you won’t play for major stakes. The ledger gathers dust. These stakes are mere amusements. Nevertheless, I am bound by ancient rules. An imp never cheats when there are stakes.”

“Right,” Willum said with a sigh. Since playing games was the imp’s favorite pastime, Willum had agreed to an alternate betting system. Something the imp called winner’s perks. The winner got to choose a punishment for the loser; nothing major, but something uncomfortable enough to make the games more fun for the imp. “So what’s the score now?”

The imp cleared his throat and opened a scroll that sat on the table beside him. He reached under the top of his hide breastplate and pulled out an impossibly long feathered quill. As he spoke, he made adjustments to the score chart. “Team Theodore now has four hundred and forty points.”

“Team Theodore!” shouted the dwarf with a laugh. Bofus growled at him, exposing his large fangs. The rivalry between the two illusions was another of the imp’s amusements.

“Team Willum,” Theodore continued. “Who had formerly been in the lead before Bofus’ little error, now has three hundred and fifty points.”

Willum groaned. They only played to five hundred points. Overcoming such a deficit would be nearly impossible. “Alright, Theodore, so if you win I have to say something embarrassing to one of my friends, right?”

The last time Willum had lost a bet like this had been during their first week in Malaroo. Theodore had commanded that at some point in the day, he ask one of his companions for a thigh rub. Willum had put it off until the end of the day, then as they were preparing to sleep, he had asked Cletus. The imp thought this was hilarious, but Cletus had just shrugged and done it. After a long day of riding, it hadn’t been half bad.

“Two syllables is all, Willy,” the imp said, raising two claw-tipped fingers. “Ho! Two syllables of my choosing and I get to specify who you say it to.”

Willum’s eyes narrowed. “Not curse words and whatever it is, I’m not saying it to Jhonate.”

The imp raised a bush black eyebrow. “You don’t get to change the parameters mid-game, Willy.”

“Yeah, well it’s late. Either you agree to my changes and we finish now or we wait and continue this tomorrow night,” Willum said. Even though his body was technically asleep, nights spent gaming with the imp left him mentally tired. Every minute of true sleep he could get between now and morning would be very helpful. “And if you lose, there will be no more gaming nights until we arrive back in Roo-Tan’lan. I’m tired of staying up late and having a full day’s journey the next day.”

His body was currently asleep in a Roo-Tan campsite next to the road two days away from the city. He was travelling with Jhonate, Vannya, Deathclaw, and Jhonate’s brother Jhexin. They were headed to the outskirts of the Troll Swamp where an old friend of Xedrion’s lived, evidently studying the swamp.

The imp waved a hand. “Fine. Your chances of overcoming this shortage is slim anyway.” He leaned forward and a grin spread across his lips. “What if we make this more interesting?”

Willum’s shoulders slumped. “What?”

“I will make you a deal. Ho-ho, this is much better! I will allow Team Willum to bid blind zero!” said Theodore.

“Blind?” Willum said.

“Indeed. Either you or your partner can bid zero without looking at your hands,” the imp explained. “Instead of receiving a hundred points, as with a regular zero hand, you will receive two hundred.”

A zero hand was hard enough to accomplish. Unity was played with a thirteen card hand. With the help of your partner it was possible to avoid taking any tricks, but a zero bid was only attempted if you had a truly awful hand. To bid zero without looking at your cards and succeed was a long shot.

“So basically it comes down to this one hand,” Willum said. Win or lose, the game was over. “What is the catch, imp?”

Theodore chuckled. “I get to add one stipulation to your punishment. You cannot tell the person why you said my little two syllables to them.”

Willum nodded slowly. He thought it would be something like that. He tried to think of what two syllables would be all that bad. There were several nasty possibilities. Still, he supposed it was worth the chance.

“Okay then. We’ll bid blind zero.” The only question was which one of them should do it. He looked into Bofus’ bland eyes. Either way was tough. In the end, he decided that it would be easier to cover any of the kobald’s mistakes with his own hand. “Bofus will be the one bidding zero.”

The kobald grinned in anticipation and began dealing out the cards. He stopped when there were only two left and turned over the top one to determine which element would be trump. “Blue again,” he announced.

Willum sorted through his hand. It wasn’t bad. He had plenty of high cards in each element. Now it just depended on Bofus.

“Uh . . . Wilhelm?” said the kobold hesitantly.

“Willum,” Willum reminded him.

“I don’t think were gonna make it.” The kobald pulled a card out of his hand and turned it around. On the face of the card was a vertical infinity symbol colored in blue and gold. It was the high universal card. No matter what happened, he was going to take at least one trick. They had lost before they even began.

“Blast it!” Willum swore, throwing down his cards.

“Ha ha! We win!” shouted the dwarf. He pointed at Bofus. “”Once again, kobalds prove to be the inferior race!” The kobald cried out in shame and began repeatedly slamming his face into the stone table.

Willum stood from his chair. “Okay, Theodore. What are those two syllables?”

The imp’s grin spread from ear-to-ear and he snapped his fingers. The smoky ground underneath the table opened up. The dwarf and kobald gasped as they fell into nothingness. Theodore rubbed his pale hands together as he approached Willum.

“Ho-Ho! Two words. Six letters,” he said with a giggle. “You will approach Mage Vannya at some point of the day and say, ‘lick me’.”

“Ugh! No way,” Willum said. “Lick me? That’s childish.”

The imp gave him a dull look. “We’re talking about a two syllable punishment. Of course it’s going to be childish. That’s what makes it so amusing.”

Willum put his face in his hands, trying to think of a way he could say that and not have it come out as vulgar. “I can’t do it.”

“Rules are rules, Willy,” the imp reminded him. “Now I believe it is time you should be going. You only have about two hours before sunrise.”

“No, Theodore. Make it something else. We should renegotia-!”

“And no sneaking those syllables into the middle of a sentence either, Willy!” the imp added as the smoky ground beneath Willum’s feet disappeared and he fell into blackness.

Two hours later he was wakened by a booted foot.

“It is morning, Willum Oddblade,” said Jhonate, giving his ribs a firm nudge. “Wake now if you wish to eat.”

She moved on, carrying her loaded pack over to the packhorses and Willum sat up with a groan. The rest of his companions were up and moving. Jhexin was joining his sister at the horses, while Vannya fussed over the breakfast. Willum didn’t see Deathclaw anywhere, but the raptoid was likely already scouting the road ahead.

“How are you feeling, Willy? Rested?” the imp asked.

“Shut up,” Willum grumbled as he climbed out of his bedroll. He pulled on his boots and began putting his things away. One thing he had learned quickly on this trip was that Jhonate didn’t mess around. She hadn’t been kidding when she said he might not get breakfast. She followed through.

Willum brought his bedroll and pack to the horses and loaded them up, next to the wrapped body of the troll thing. He noted the amused expression on Jhexin’s face and nodded at the man. “Morning.”

“Good morning to you, dry foot,” Jhexin replied. “You look tired. Is it because you carry that bed around with you?”

“No. It’s my axe,” he replied.

It wasn’t the first time Jhonate’s brother had given him a hard time about his bedroll. The Roo-Tan didn’t often use horses, preferring to run everywhere they went. As a result, they traveled light. Both Jhexin and Jhonate had left their colder climate gear behind and slept in a sort of mesh sack at night. It weighed very little and kept insects off of them as they slept.

If not for Vannya they probably wouldn’t have horses at all. The beautiful mage may have begun dressing like a Roo-Tan woman, but she didn’t know how to travel like one. The majority of the items that weighed the two horses down were hers. Jhonate had opposed weighing down their expedition with such a load, but after Vannya had protested, Xedrion had approved it. Most of it was investigative equipment she had brought with her from the Mage School, packed away in bulging sacks and chests of various sizes.

Willum glanced at Jhexin, “Son of Xedrion, why do you think that your father chose this particular group to undertake this journey?”

The Roo-Tan warrior shrugged. “Sir Edge was the one who suggested us. The only addition father made was replacing Qurl with Jhonate.”

“Why do you think he did that?” Willum said.

Jhexin, shrugged and smiled. “I don’t know, but it sure made her mad.”

“Ho-ho, Willy! He is clever, that Protector,” the imp observed.

Why is that? Willum asked.

“Ever since he agreed to their marriage, those two can barely keep their hands off each other,” Theodore replied. “Sending her away allows their ardor to cool and it also allows him to evaluate his future son-in-law without her interference.”

Come on, Willum said. He had been around both of them many times. If Sir Edge hadn’t told him they were betrothed, he wouldn’t have believed it.

“It’s obvious, Willy. Ho! Whenever those two are in the same room you can practically smell it.”

“I think it’s because of her,” Willum said aloud, nodding towards Vannya. The Mage had lifted a bubbling pot of gruel from the fire and was sitting it on a rock to cool. “I don’t think the Protector wanted Vannya to be the only woman on this trip.”

Jhexin followed his eyes and his smile became a leer. “You could be right about that one. Too bad she is a dry foot. If she was a Roo-Tan girl, I would be laying marsh roses at her door.”

Willum didn’t know how to respond to that. With the tone in the man’s voice, he wasn’t sure if the remark was supposed to be vulgar or romantic. “Even ‘dry foot’ girls love flowers,” he said.

“So how are you going to say it to her, Willy?” the imp asked. “Have you decided?”

No, he replied mentally. He was dreading it. It was hard to even think when that woman was around. He couldn’t imagine approaching her with so base a statement.

“Are you two eating or not?” Jhonate called.

“Yes!” both men replied. They approached the fire and held out bowls which the mage filled with a smile.

“I am so excited for today!” she declared. “Finally we’ll get there and see what we can learn from this Mister Stolz.”

“You will call him Mister Hoon,” Jhonate reminded her, also directing a glance at Willum. “Until he tells you otherwise.”

“Right, the name thing,” Vannya said, placing a hand on her chest. “Thank you, Jhonate. I would likely have forgotten and I wouldn’t want to offend the man.”

Jhonate glowered at her. Willum was sure that the mage hadn’t intended to sound condescending. He had also found it difficult to remember that particular cultural tradition at first. But after a few days in Roo-Tan’lan it had become second nature. He supposed that it was harder for Vannya to remember since everyone so readily gave her permission. Jhexin had decided to let her use his name by the second hour of the journey. Jhonate had been unpleased by that development as well.

“Are you still not ready to leave yet?” said Deathclaw suddenly from behind Willum’s shoulder.

Willum jumped and the horses whinnied in fear. They stumbled a few yards down the road before Jhexin was able to catch up to them and calm them down. Willum was grateful that they had been hobbled. Otherwise, they would have been delayed trying to chase them down.

And you could have warned me he was coming, Willum said to the imp. He couldn’t blame the horses for being nervous. The raptoid was a formidable presence, muscular and dangerous looking. Every part of his body was a weapon and that wasn’t even counting his sword and throwing knives.

“Ho-ho, Willy!” laughed the imp. “You should pay closer attention to your surroundings.”

“I didn’t hear you approaching,” Willum told the raptoid.

“Of course you did not,” Deathclaw replied, then addressed Jhonate. “What is the direction of our journey today?”

“We travel south to the riverbank and then we head eastward,” Jhonate replied. “In half a day’s journey, the river joins the swamp. That is where we shall find Stolz’s cabin. Nearly two miles away from the village of Glen.”

“I shall stay east of you, then,” Deathclaw replied. “I will let you know if I find anything that should alarm you.”

“Uh, Deathclaw. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to have breakfast with us?” Vannya asked.

The mage was eyeing the raptoid with calculated interest. Twice already on their journey, she had asked if she could examine him with her magic. Willum wasn’t sure what she was hoping to learn, but Deathclaw hadn’t exactly been kind with his refusals.

The raptoid leaned over the pot and sniffed at it with distaste. “Bananas and berries and mush. No. I shall eat a bird on the way.”

He turned and disappeared into the foliage. Vannya stared after him with pursed lips. “Well, he didn’t have to be so rude about it.”

“Eat quickly,” Jhonate commanded. “I would like to get there as soon as possible.”

They did so, polishing off their bowls of gruel in silence. The ‘mush’ that Deathclaw had spoken about was actually rice. It was something that Willum had eaten a few times during the siege at the Mage School, but never as a sweet dish. Vannya had mixed in some cinnamon with the berries and banana and though he found the texture a bit strange, Willum thought it was pretty good.

“It was delicious, Vannya. Thank you,” Willum said.

“Why you are very welcome, Willum,” she said, placing a hand on his arm and delivering one of her leg numbing smiles.

“Ho! Now is a good time say it!” the imp encouraged.

Willum’s cheeks reddened and he merely grunted and turned away. I don’t think I’m going to be able to do this.

“So you keep saying, Willy,” the imp said. “But you will. That was the agreed upon payment for your loss.”

The group finished cleaning up the campsite and left, Jhonate taking the lead. As she had the first two days of the journey, Vannya stuck close to the woman’s side, enthusiastically pointing out things and asking observant questions. She kept a notebook in her hand, something she called her ‘field journal’ and jotted down copious notes.

Willum and Jhexin walked behind them, leading the horses and generally admiring the view. Every once in a while, the Roo-Tan warrior would make a remark or two about the mage that was surprisingly blunt for someone raised in Jhonate’s family. Willum had noticed this behavior often from other men when Vannya was around. She seemed oblivious to it, but he wondered if that was really the case. She didn’t exactly encourage it, but all the same, Willum noticed that she seemed to know exactly which men to ask if she needed something.

“What is your difficulty with our bet, Willy?” the imp teased. “Could it be that you’re enamored with this scented mage?”

Scented? Willum asked.

“You do not smell it? Ho! The girl practically douses herself with flower water. She has several bottles of it in one of those wooden chests of hers.”

Well, I hadn’t noticed, Willum replied, though now that he thought about it, she did smell nice.

A short time later, they came upon the river Jhonate had mentioned. The road that they were on crossed the river at a shallows, but Jhonate took a left turn and led them along the bank where they joined with another road of sorts. It wasn’t very well traveled, basically a pair of wagon tracks surrounded by marsh grasses. They headed down this trail as the river shallows widened, splitting into several small streams.

“How much further, fullsister?” Jhexin called out. “The river has become marshes.”

Jhonate shrugged. “I do not know. It has been many years since father took me to see old Stolz.”

“It’s fascinating, don’t you think?” Vannya said, flashing a smile back at them as she jotted down more notes. “Look at how quickly the vegetation changed as we reached the marshes. There are plants here I’ve never seen before!”

Jhexin let out a low groan. “Look at the way the sun hits that yellow hair. And those eyes and that rear! I’ve been thinking, father is allowing Jhonate to marry an outsider. Perhaps he would allow me to court this one, mage or not.”

“You want to marry her?” Willum said in surprise. It wasn’t exactly the kind of coarse talk he heard from the students in the academy.

“Agh, you are right,” Jhexin said. “She is too much of a thinker for me. But, mmm, if there was one woman worth becoming a dradatchi for, it would be this one!”

The Roo-Tan warrior said that last part a bit too loudly. Vannya and Jhonate both turned their heads to look back at the two men. Jhonate’s face was a mask of anger. Jhexin looked back at them innocently, while Willum managed a sort of apologetic grimace.

Vannya leaned toward Jhonate and whispered something to her. The Roo-Tan woman gave her a firm nod and snapped, “Jhexin! Walk with me. I need your eyes.”

The warrior dropped his horse’s lead and trotted forward, smiling at Vannya as he approached. She replied with a grin of her own and left them to walk back to the horses with Willum. She grasped the lead Jhexin had dropped.

“Sorry, I had to get out of his line of sight for awhile,” she said conspiratorially. “He’s sweet, but a bit of a starer. I could practically feel his eyes burning holes in my buttocks.”

Willum chuckled a bit embarrassedly and asked, “How do you handle that? I mean, when men look at you in that way.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I must say that is the first time a man has asked me that.”

“I’m sorry if it was an inappropriate question,” Willum said.

“No. I was just surprised. Boys don’t usually try to think of things from a woman’s point of view.” She thought about how to answer it for a moment. “It doesn’t bother me for the most part. Not unless they get rude, and when that happens, I’ve learned to deal with it. My father told me when I was young that men were going to like me. He taught me to use it to my advantage.”

“Oh?” Willum said. She had a reputation for flirting to get what she wanted. He was surprised to hear her admit it.

“Now would be a hilarious time for you to say it, Willy,” the imp pleaded.

Shut up, Theodore.

“Not in any vulgar way,” she assured him. “My, that could have sounded wrong. No, he taught me that a smile here and a touch on the arm there would be helpful when I needed something done.”

“That does sound like something your father would say,” Willum said. The Wizard Valtrek was the Mage School’s spymaster and had a reputation for possessing a real devious mind. Willum had seen it for himself during the war. He rushed to add, “Please take no offense. I respect your father. It’s just that I know he’s always looking for an angle.”

“Don’t worry. I know what he’s capable of,” she said. “I actually like it when men aren’t afraid to speak honestly around me.”

“I will have to remember that for the future,” Willum said.

“Why Willum Vriil,” she said, dropping her jaw in mock surprise. “Is this your way of announcing your interest? I thought you had something going with that platemail woman.”

“Uh, no, I . . . Kathy the Plate?” He reached up and rubbed the back of this neck. “Well, she definitely seems interested in me, but I don’t know. I mean . . . I have never even seen her without that armor on.”

She giggled and then her eyes became wide. “Have you ever thought, what if she looks the same underneath? I mean, what if that is just her body type?”

He smiled questioningly. “You mean all rigid and segmented?”

“Yeah. She could be an insect woman and you’d never know.” She snorted a cute laugh. Jhexin and Jhonate looked back at them and she placed a hand over her mouth. “Sorry,” she said lowering her voice. “I wasn’t trying to make fun. I’m sure she is a lovely person.”

He chuckled again. “She is . . . I think. It’s hard to say. I wasn’t able to get to know her all that well. She sort of latched onto me towards the end of the war and then I left with Tolivar and I haven’t seen her since. So to answer your earlier question, no, there isn’t anything going on with me and Kathy.”

“That wasn’t my question, Willum,” Vannya said. “I asked if you were announcing your interest in me.”

He blinked at her. Her eyes were so blue. “I . . . don’t usually ‘announce’ my interest in women. I sort of spend time with them and figure that if they like me, something will sort of work out.”

She squinted at him. “No wonder Kathy the Plate felt she had to be so forward with you. I’ll tell you what. When we get back to Roo-Tan’lan, why don’t you ‘spend some time with me’ while I’m doing my research and we can see if ‘something will sort of work out’.”

“Now, Willy! Say it now!” the imp pleaded.

He ignored the imp and said, “Uh, sure. That sounds wonderful.”

“Wonderful? Ugh, Willy. Not only are you unfunny, you’re sappy.”

“There is a dwelling on the other side of those trees,” Deathclaw announced, startling them both as he emerged from the trees beside them. The horses shied away, and Willum struggled to keep his from bolting.

“Oh! We’re there!” Vannya said.

She thrust her horse’s lead into Willum’s hand and rushed forward to stand at Jhonate’s side. The warrior woman was pointing out a cluster of cabins a short distance away at the edge of the marshes. Willum held Vannya’s horse steady while staring after her.

“You should not be so easily surprised, Willum,” Deathclaw said. “Your heart is racing.”

Willum swallowed. There is no way I’m saying your two syllables to that woman, Theodore.

“You’re so unimaginative, Willy,” the imp remarked.

Stolz’s property was marked by three cabins at the water’s edge; a large central cabin and two slightly smaller ones. The three buildings were built in a semicircle facing a long dock that extended into the water. Several small boats were tied to it.

While they approached, there was a disturbance in the water. A tall figure emerged from the water at the point closest to the cabins. It was massive and naked, with a greenish tint to its skin and it carried a large fish in the claws of one hand.

“A troll thing!” Deathclaw hissed.

The raptoid ran towards the creature, unsheathing his sword as he went. The rest of the party ran after him, drawing their own weapons. The creature caught their approach out of the corner of its eye and turned to face them.

“Wait!” Vannya cried. “Don’t kill it! I need it for study!”

The creature raised its arms defensively and shouted, “Stay back!”

Deathclaw didn’t stop. He came closer, swinging back his sword.

“What is that thing?” Willum wondered. It was the height and coloration of a troll, but it was widely muscular and had a full bushy head of black hair. In addition, its eyes were larger than a trolls and its mouth was a good deal smaller.

“I have no idea, Willy,” the imp said. “It’s like a troll, but it isn’t.”

“No!” the creature said and threw the large fish.

It had good aim. The fish would have struck Deathclaw in the face, had the raptoid not sliced out with his sword. The fish fell in two pieces and Deathclaw ran on.

The creature held out one hand in a pleading gesture and Deathclaw swiped down, lopping off its arm at the elbow. The creature gasped in pain and bent to pick up the severed limb. Deathclaw raised his sword high to strike again.

“Stop it, Deathclaw!” Vannya shouted breathlessly, trying to keep up with the rest of them. “It’s no good to me dead! Or at the very least it’s a lot less useful!”

“I merely plan to dismember it so that it can not run away.” Deathclaw said, but he hesitated and looked questioningly at his sword. He pointed the tip at the creature. “What are you, beast?”

The door to the large central cabin slammed open and a man ran out. “Halt!”

He was an odd looking fellow. He seemed to be in his mid-fifties, with a thinning head of salt and pepper hair. What hair he did have was braided in the Roo-Tan style, though the braids were unkempt and the ribbons at the sides of his face were a dirty orange. A pair of spectacles sat on his nose. The man was gasping and hiking up his pants as if he were just getting dressed as Deathclaw had attacked.

“Stop, you vile thing! What have you done to poor Bluth?”

As the man shouted, a powerful wave of compulsion struck Willum. It would have forced him to a standstill if not for the bond. As it was, he staggered under the weight of it. Jhonate, Jhexin and Vannya all stopped running and stood there with confused expressions on their faces.

“Stay back, human witch!” Deathclaw snapped, pointing his sword at the man. “If you continue to use your magic on me I may be forced to slay you.”

The man stopped just out of the reach of the raptoid’s sword. “Bluth, are you alright?”

The creature had picked up its severed arm and was holding it back into place. Its lips were pulled back in a grimace of pain and Willum noted that its mouth was much smaller than a troll’s mouth. Its teeth were sharp, but not the haphazard razors of a troll’s.

“My arm!” it said. The creature’s voice was raspy, but perfectly understandable. “It will come back on, though. He cut our lunch in half!”

“What manner of beast are you?” the man asked Deathclaw, his face a mix of anger and curiosity.

“That is Stolz bin Hoon!” Jhonate shouted, finally shaking herself loose from the man’s bewitching magic.

“Is he? Very well,” Deathclaw said, sheathing his sword. “I apologize for threatening you. What manner of creature is this that you protect, Hoon man? My sword says it is not a troll.”

“No. He is called a thull,” Stolz replied.

“Uh, oh, Willy,” said the imp. “I think I understand. Ho! Use your spirit sight.”

Willum did so and his eyes widened. “Deathclaw, look at them with your spirit sight.”

Deathclaw let out a surprised hiss. “You are bonded to this beast?”

Chapter Sixteen

“Yes. I am a bonding wizard, though not many know it.” He blinked at the raptoid and the last traces of his anger faded away. “Ah! That explains why my compulsion did not work on you two. The protection of the bond.”

“Yes, we are bonded. But to different wizards,” Willum replied. “Mine is in Razbeck and his is waiting back in Roo-Tan’lan.”

“Is that so?” Stolz said. “What a very interesting coincidence. I have met so few other bonding wizards. What brings two bonded to visit an old hermit like me?”

“Stolz!” said Jhonate, running up to him. It had taken her, Jhexin, and Vannya some time to shake off the effects of the magic. Even then, their movements had remained slowed. “I am the one who brought them.”

“Oh!” he said, noticing her for the first time. The bonding wizard threw his arms around Jhonate in a quick embrace. “Jhonate bin Leeths! It’s been years. You have grown up so well! I am so sorry for that spell, by the way. Are you feeling alright? Bewitching magic mixed with a little blessing magic can be a nasty combination.”

“Ho-ho!” said the imp. “That magic he used was powerful stuff, Willy. Blessing magic usually has to be cast by touch, but by adding it to his bewitching magic he was able to use it at range. He mixed a compulsion telling you to stop with a negative blessing to slow you down. Ho! Those two talents are rare to find in the same wizard.”

Willum was impressed. He imagined the effect that such a spell would have on a battlefield. An enemy slowed like that would be easily mown down.

Jhonate gave Stolz a questioning look. “I never knew you were a bonding wizard. Does father know?”

Stolz smiled. “Of course Xedrion knows. It was his idea to keep it a secret. He said that a bonding wizard was a valuable asset to the nation.” He laughed. “As if an enemy would care to assassinate me. My bonding magic is weak at best. I’ve only ever managed two bonded at a time and one of them has always been an animal.”

“Whew! That magic was tough! It’s still hard to walk,” Vannya said. The mage was breathing heavily and sweating as if she had run for miles. She stuck her hand out towards Stolz. “Mister Hoon, sir? I am Mage Vannya. The Protector sent me here on an expedition to learn more about the new troll creatures that are roaming the swamps. I believe that your bonded here is one.”

“My dear!” he said, taking her hand. “How enchanting. I have never seen hair and eyes in those colors before. Tell me, what family are you from?”

Jhonate rolled her eyes. “She is not of the Roo-Tan, Stolz. She is from the Mage School in Dremaldria.”

His eyes didn’t leave Vannya’s. “A mage? That’s right, you called yourself Mage Vannya, didn’t you? Forgive me. I am a bit addlebrained from age and stunned by your uncommon beauty. How enchanting, did I say that before?”

“You said it, Stolz,” Jhexin said.

“A mage?” Stolz repeated. “You know, I have been telling Xedrion for years that it was time we, as a culture, gave up on that elemental magic ban. Old superstitious nonsense. Clinging to beliefs like those are what holds us back. All those poor children that have been banished over the centuries. Think of how much stronger we would be as a people if we had retained their talents?”

“Thank you, Mister Hoon,” Vannya said. “I am so glad to hear you say that because-.”

“Call me Stolz, dear.” He glanced around, gesturing at Willum and Deathclaw with his free hand before returning his eyes to Vannya’s. “All of you. Call me Stolz. This whole ‘name rights’ tradition is another thing holding us back as a culture. After all, how are other nations supposed to have a reasonable discourse with us if they don’t even know how to address us?”

“It is not all that complicated, Stolz.” Jhexin said, his tone offended. “If dry foot peoples do not care enough to understand our traditions, why should we even bother to listen to them?”

“Oh right. I forgot. You’re here, Jhexin,” Stolz replied dully. “Why don’t you go and retrieve those horses I saw you leave by the water? Elsewise, they’ll end up lost somewhere in the marshes.”

“Actually, Willum was the one who dropped their leads-,” Jhexin began.

“Just go get them, fullbrother,” Jhonate insisted. Jhexin grumbled, but trotted over to retrieve them.

Deathclaw was peering at the troll creature that Stolz had referred to as Bluth. The creature was still hunched over, holding his severed arm back in place. Surprisingly, it was no longer bleeding.

“I suppose I should apologize for attacking you on sight,” the raptoid said, inclining his head slightly. Willum could tell that such an admission did not come easily to him. “The last creature that I met like you attacked me right away.”

“It did?” Bluth asked in a raspy voice. His eyes were the eyes of a troll, but larger and more expressive.

“Pardon me,” Stolz said, tearing his eyes from Vannya. “Did you say that a thull attacked you?”

“If that’s what you call such creatures, yes,” Deathclaw replied. “We brought its body with us to show to you.”

“You killed it?” Stolz said, his face growing sad. “How terrible. They are nearly extinct.”

“Actually, Jhonate killed it,” Willum added.

Jhonate scowled at him. “Stolz, I think there must be a misunderstanding. You keep saying ‘thulls’. That can’t be what these creatures are because thulls are extinct.”

“No. No, just very nearly,” Stolz replied. “There is one village of them left. Deep in the swamp. Your father knows of it.”

“But I was told that trolls killed them all hundreds of years ago.” Jhonate said with a frown.

Stolz raised a finger. “Ah, but this particular village has been protected by powerful spirit magic. Trolls won’t go near the place.”

“Uh, Mister Stolz, sir?” Vannya said politely. She was holding her notebook in her free hand and looked a bit frustrated. “This is all very fascinating. I would like to take notes if that is alright?”

Stolz looked down. “Am I still holding your hand? How odd of me. Again, addlebrained,” he said with a laugh. He dropped her hand somewhat reluctantly. “Of course, I should be a proper host and invite you all inside.” He glanced over at his bonded. “How is your arm, Bluth? All better yet?”

The thull winced and the fingers on his recently severed arm moved. “Just about. I think the bone is back together now.”

“Good, then. Follow me and we’ll sort this whole mess out.” He started back up the path to the center cabin and waved at them to follow. “Of course my home, I must admit, is a mess. I so rarely have visitors here.”

Willum followed behind the rest of them, feeling a bit lost. Can you make any sense of this, Theodore? What’s a thull?

“I have never heard of one, Willy,” the imp replied. “And there are very few creatures that I have not heard of. This should be interesting at least. Especially when you finally work yourself up to saying those two syllables.”

I’m not going to, Willum insisted.

“You will. It was the deal,” Theodore said, getting angry. “If you throw out all the rules, then so will I. Ho-ho! You do not want that, sweet Willy!”

Willum’s jaw clenched in frustration. Look, we are no longer imp and master. We are Willum and Theodore. Friends and companions. We have no need for ledgers and we should have no need for ridiculous bets.

“You push this too far. Games are no fun without consequences,” Theodore growled. “Do not start this kind of precedent.”

We’ll talk about this later, Willum replied.

They had reached the door to the cabin and as Stolz opened it inward, Willum saw that the bonding wizard hadn’t been exaggerating. The place was a mess. The interior of the cabin consisted of one long room. On one end was a seating area, followed by a cupboard and sink, followed by two beds. Unclean dishes were stacked high in the sink, articles of clothing were hanging over every bit of furniture and there was a thin layer of slime coating the length of the floor.

Jhonate took one look inside and shut the door again. “I believe we can talk outside.”

The bonding wizard cleared his throat. “Yes. As I said, I don’t usually get visitors. I didn’t realize what a mess it was until just now.”

“I told you it needed to be tidied,” Bluth said. The creature had let go of his arm and was rotating his wrist. The place where Deathclaw had cut him was marked with a puckered line, but it seemed he was intact again.

“I think what it needs is a woman’s touch,” Vannya said cheerfully. “Why have you never married, Mister Stolz?”

“Are you offering, Mage Vannya?” he asked. The mage slapped him on the arm playfully, but Jhonate wasn’t amused.

“If you cannot care for yourself, I shall have to speak to father,” she threatened. “He may decide to send someone here to look after you.”

“Do you think he would do that?” Stolz said eagerly. “That would be so nice. I would have more time to devote to my work.”

“I will speak with him then.” Jhonate said. She cocked her head. “What is it that you do, exactly? Father never was quite clear.”

“Well . . . I should show you, of course!” Stolz clapped his hands in excitement. “Follow me!”

He led them to the cabin on the left. It was slightly smaller than the central one. He opened the door and Willum saw that it was also a single large room. Stolz stepped inside and, as the others entered after him, they were hit by a distinctly acrid odor; the chemical aroma of troll slime.

Four rectangular wooden tubs of different sizes took up the center of the room, allowing just enough room to walk along either side. Each tub was filled nearly to the top with water and troll slime and shapes moved around inside them. Occasionally, some of the tubs’ contents would splash out and run down a drain in the center of the floor.

“What are in those?” Vannya said with excitement, peering inside the closest one.

“My pride and joy!” Stolz said. “This is my putrifin farm.”

“Ooh,” Vannya said. She had her notebook back out and was jotting that down. “What is a putrifin?”

“Quite plainly, it is a fish designed to clean up the Troll Swamp,” he declared. When no one asked a question right away, he continued, “For centuries after being driven from our homeland, our people tried to find ways to reclaim the swamps. All of them unsuccessful. The first attempts were controlled burns, but the fire spread too quickly. Lives were lost. Huge sections of the swamp were destroyed. But for what? The slime returned, as did the troll population.

“After that, multiple Protectors sent expeditions for the source of the slime. Most of the expeditions were lost and those that did return did so empty-handed. It wasn’t until three hundred years ago that the truth of the Troll Swamps was discovered and all attempts to reclaim it ceased.”

Vannya nodded, the tip of her tongue sticking out the side of her mouth as she wrote. “Uh huh! So what was the truth and how was it discovered?”

He scratched his head. “How it was discovered is a bit embarrassing. Protector Jarvis bin Tayl was obsessed with the ancient city of KhanzaRoo. He called it our birthright and the Troll Swamps our plague. Despite the protests of the ancient elves, he readied the largest expedition ever, raising an army ten thousand strong, the nation’s best warriors. He gave grand speeches to the populace, promising to find the source of the trolls and destroy it. Then, the day before the expedition left, the Prophet came.

“He visited with Jarvis bin Tayl throughout the night, explaining the origin of the Troll Swamps and why they could not be reclaimed. The next morning, Jarvis exited the council room and announced that the expedition had been cancelled. Sadly, he could never truly let go of his dream and a few years later, he mounted an expedition with a few of his closest friends, seeking out KhanzaRoo. He never returned. That was the last such expedition undertaken.”

“What did the Prophet tell him? Why is it that the swamps cannot be reclaimed?” Jhonate asked.

Stoltz looked suddenly uncomfortable. “That part is something I’m not at liberty to say. It’s sensitive information that has been passed down from protector to protector through the years. I only know because Xedrion decided to help me with my project and wanted to help me know what I was getting into.” He licked his lips. “But I was getting sidetracked. Let’s get back to the subject of my work, shall we?”

“Oh-ho. There’s something important about that story we’re missing, Willy,” Observed the imp.

I was thinking the same thing, Willum replied.

Stolz waved his arms over the tanks of slime. “Putrifin! They could very well be the solution to our problem. Now we all know that there are a few varieties of fish that survive in the swamps despite the slime, but these beautiful creatures thrive in the slime. They feed off it!”

Vannya giggled in excitement. “Fish that eat troll slime? But how did you discover them?”

“They didn’t exist so I had to create them,” he said, pausing and waiting for astonished stares. “You’re probably wondering how I was able to do such a thing.”

“Actually, what I was wondering had to do with what you were-,” Jhonate began.

“Puckerfish!” Stolz said.

Jhexin frowned. “You mean those bottom feeders that the farmers have to keep out of the rice patties?”

“The same!” Stolz replied. “Those ‘bottom feeders’ as you call them are especially good at adapting to their situation. I actually started studying them as an attempt to help farmers with that problem you’re referring to. After observing them for years, I discovered that the key to their prosperity was in their eggs.

“You see, the adult female puckerfish carries fertilized eggs in her belly but does not tend to spawn until she becomes stressed. This could be caused by a variety of factors, but most commonly lack of food. When the eggs leave the female’s body, they are already retrieving important information from their surroundings. They adapt to their new situation and by the time the fish hatch, they have developed the ability to survive off of whatever nutrients are available. That is where my grand idea began.”

He patted the side of the first tank. “So! I gather puckerfish eggs and place them in this first vat. It is filled with a swamp water and troll slime mix. Once they hatch, I transfer them to the second vat. Look inside. You can see them.”

He scooted over and the others followed him. The water was a different shade of green than the previous vat. Willum could see hundreds of small shapes darting around in the murky liquid.

“This vat contains a similar mix to the previous one, but I occasionally add minced pieces of boiled troll flesh,” Stolz announced. “Boiling the flesh kills it and makes it suitable for their undeveloped little digestive systems. Once they reach a certain size, I move them over to the next vat and this is where the fun begins!”

The next vat was twice as long as the previous two. The water inside was so green and murky that Willum could barely make out the fish. From what he could see, they were much bigger. One of them came close to the surface and he was certain he saw sharp little teeth. He wasn’t the only one to notice. Vanya, who had a hand on the lip of the tub, jerked it away quite quickly.

“Those do not look like puckerfish,” Jhexin said.

“Yes, they have become putrifin by this stage,” Stolz announced proudly. “Once a week, I add live troll flesh. These beautiful creatures love it!”

“And you just get live troll flesh from the swamp?” Willum asked.

“Trolls are very susceptible to bewitching magic,” Stolz explained. “Whenever I run across one, I make it follow me home. I keep a few in my other cabin in case I need more.”

He waved them down to the last vat. This one was the largest of all, half again as tall as the previous one and twice as long. Willum looked in. The water was a deep green and the shapes inside were large, each one perhaps over a foot long.

Vannya moved up next to him and peered into the water. “Ingenious isn’t it, Willum? What a solution to the problem. Training fish to eat-!”

One of the fish broke the surface. Vannya yelped as it snapped a toothy mouth shut inches from Willum’s startled face before plunging back in. Slime and brackish water splashed over the sides of the vat, soaking Willum’s arm.

“Careful!” said Stolz. “They do not like the taste of human flesh, but it might take a nibble for them to find that out!”

Willum and Vannya both took a step back from the vat and Willum impulsively stuck his soaked arm under Vannya’s nose. “Lick me,” he said.

The mage recoiled, pushing his arm away. “Ugh! No!” she said and laughed. “Gross!”

“Clever one, Willy,” the imp said, his voice tinged with begrudging approval. “Couch it as a joke and the maiden laughs it off.” He sighed.
“I shall have to alter the parameters of your punishment next time.”

Willum felt a sense of relief that Vannya had taken it that way. We won’t be making any bets regarding her in the future.

“You are no fun, Willy.”

Stolz continued, “The putrifin stay in this tank and are fed troll meat as well as troll slime on a regular basis until they are large enough to release into the troll swamps. They eat and breed and spawn in the foulest part of the swamps, ever so slowly retaking it so that one day, our people can retake it for ourselves.”

“I’m confused,” Willum said. “I understand why eating the slime is helpful for cleaning up the swamps, but what good does it do for them to eat troll flesh? I mean, the troll isn’t going to just stand there in the water and let itself be eaten, right? Won’t it just move onto land and heal?”

“You have not seen how efficient my little putrifin are. A swarm of these fish can eat a troll complete in mere minutes, bones and all.” Stolz smiled. “There will be no regenerating. Of course, I’m not training them this way just for the odd chance they might catch a troll that decided to take a wade. I mean, how else are we going to . . ?” he trailed off and Willum was pretty sure he had been about to say something he wasn’t supposed to. “Anyway, I have been working on this project for just over a decade and-.”

“What was that you were about to say?” Vannya asked, unwilling to let it go. “You were about to say something there and you stopped yourself.”

Stolz laughed nervously. “Addled, remember? Uh, so as I was saying, I have been working on this project for some time and over the years I have released an estimated thirty thousand putrifin into various areas of the swamp.”

“That is a lot,” Jhonate said with an impressed nod. “Have you seen results?”

“Have I seen . . !” He scoffed and opened the door of the cabin, ushering them outside. He gestured at the calm marshes in front of the hatchery. “When your father helped me build this place, these pristine marshes were just as dead and slime soaked as the rest of the Troll Swamp. Now look at it. No slime for a full square mile in any direction. There are similar results in the other places I’ve released them and I have seen positive activity that tells me that my little beauties have made their way deeper into the swamps.”

Jhonate blinked in surprise. “Then these fish are the reason for the recession of the swamps I’ve heard about?”

“Well, I don’t know that I can take full credit for it,” Stolz admitted. “Why if the source of the trolls was still producing as strongly as it had been in the past, my little fish would barely be making a dent. No, the intensity of the slime has been ebbing for the last few centuries on its own. The putrifin are just helping it along.”

“Ho-Ho! Another reference to this ‘source’ he’s not supposed to talk about,” said Theodore. “Ooh, now I really want to know. He wants to tell us, Willy. I can feel it.”

“What about your Thull?” Deathclaw asked. The raptoid had been ambivalent about the tour. His focus had been on Stolz’s bonded. The raptoid kept sniffing him and touching him. Bluth hadn’t seemed to be irritated by the attention, but it had definitely seemed odd from Willum’s perspective. “Are you not afraid that he will be eaten by these fish of yours? He was swimming among them when we arrived.”

“I was concerned in the beginning, but as I said before, he is not a troll,” Stolz reminded him. “The slime he exudes doesn’t taste the same. It’s not even very flammable. The putrifin pretty much ignore his presence.”

Vannya chewed the end of the ink cylinder she had been writing with. Her brow was knit in concentration as she looked over her notes. “That is quite interesting. Please, Stolz, tell me more about these thulls. I did a great deal of research on Malaroo before I left the Mage School and yet I’ve never heard of them before.”

“Thulls are ancient inhabitants of the swamps,” Jhonate explained. “Before we were driven out of our homeland, my people did business with them often. The troll infestation wiped them out.”

Stolz snorted. “Ha! Did business? We enslaved them is more like it. The ancient Roo rounded up villages of thulls and used them for heavy labor. That’s how they were able to build the fabled palaces of KhanzaRoo.”

“Then . . . are they a kind of troll?” Vannya asked. “I mean they have to be. There are too many similarities between the species for it to be a coincidence.”

“Well, certainly they are similar,” said Stolz. “Thulls are what the Troll Queen used when she created trolls, after all.”

“What?” said the imp.

Stolz looked around at them, surprised at their dumbfounded stares. “What? Don’t they teach this to children anymore?”

“I have never heard that said before,” Jhonate replied slowly.

“Well, I don’t know why. This is part of the basic history of the Roo. Every Roo-Tan child should know it by heart,” he said, flabbergasted. “I need to have a talk with Xedrion, because the dearth of education in our people must be tragic. I mean, the very word troll comes from the word thull. It was the ancient Roo term for a thull that had gone rabid.”

“Let’s go back to what you said about the Troll Queen creating trolls,” Vannya said. “Certainly you don’t mean that she created the race of trolls? Because that’s an incredible claim.”

“Then let’s go back even further than,” Stolz said. “You won’t find a mention of trolls in any of the histories in your Mage School older than about nine hundred and fifty years ago, which is when she created them!” He scratched his head. “Oh my. Look, there is a lot to tell and I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m famished. For mud’s sake, Bluth, go fetch us some food.”

“I had lunch caught earlier, before it was chopped in half,” Bluth grumbled.

“I will help you catch more,” Deathclaw offered. “That one fish would not have been enough to feed us all anyway.”

The thull gave him a dubious look. “Okay, but do not cut me with that sword this time.”

“I will not,” the raptoid promised. “It does not seem to want to cut you anyway.”

The two of them walked towards the marshes. The thull waded into the water, while the raptoid crept into the tall grasses, his senses reaching out, looking for prey.

“What is that strange beast?” Stolz wondered.

“It’s a long story,” Willum replied.

“He is a dragon that was transformed into this shape by a wizard,” Jhonate added matter-of-factly. “He was wild at first, but his bond with my betrothed has taught him much. He is fierce and intelligent and loyal.”

“So you’re betrothed to his . . ?” Stolz shrugged. “You know, I can see how this is a long tale. I believe I can puzzle it out. We have enough to discuss as it is.”

The bonding wizard led them back towards the central cabin. “Are you certain you don’t wish to come inside?”

“I would rather not,” Jhonate replied. “We can speak out here.”

“Then you won’t mind if I sit on the steps?” he asked. “My old ankles don’t like it when I stand in one place for too long.”

“Of course,” Vannya said, giving Jhonate a reproachful look.

“So. Thulls. Peaceful creatures. Strong. Enslaved by our people.” Stolz sat down on the porch steps with a sigh. “This could be a long story. Tell me, do you know much about the Troll Queen?”

Chapter Seventeen

Stolz’s question hung in the air for a moment before Jhonate answered him. “We know a great deal about her. The Troll Queen’s original name was Mellinda. She was born one of the Roo, but was banished for having elemental magic.”

The bonding wizard nodded. “Indeed. Good, then I will not have to tell that part of the story. The important thing to note is that by the time Mellinda did finally return to Malaroo, she had incredible powers rivaling those of the Prophet himself. Some even called her the Dark Goddess.

“Upon her arrival in KhanzaRoo, she slaughtered the High Priestess and declared herself ruler of Malaroo. There was nothing the people could do to fight her, but they refused to acknowledge her rule. They cursed her for her evil deeds and she was forced to fight off constant attack by spirit magic users. In the end, Mellinda realized that, powerful as she was, she was only one person. She could not force a nation to heel.

“That was when she decided that she was more interested in revenge than rule. She grew determined to drive her former people from their homeland and to do that she needed an army. So she left KhanzaRoo. The High Priestess that took her place just happened to be Mellinda’s younger sister, but I shall not get into that part of the tale.

“Before leaving the country, Mellinda used her powers to capture and control a group of thulls. She marched them out of Malaroo and into the mountains of Razbeck where she had a palace and controlled a small kingdom of her own. You see, Mellinda had a vicious streak. She had decided that the most poetic way of destroying her former people was to conquer them with the very race that they had enslaved.

“She planned to do so by changing the thulls’ very nature. She used her unfathomable magic to take their every strength and twist it. Corrupt it. For instance, the slime that a thull produces has a purpose, which is to lubricate their skin and keep it from drying out. It is only flammable once it reaches a certain high temperature and it is slow burning. The Roo used to gather it from them for use in candles. Mellinda changed these thulls so that their slime grew thick and became highly flammable. She modified their claws, making them longer. She made their mouths much larger and their teeth more fearsome. She increased their regenerative properties until they would recover from almost any wound.”

He shook his head sadly. “But the most important feature of the thulls and the one she desired most for her army had to do with the way they reproduced. You see, thulls do not have a gender. They are all sexually the same.”

“Weird,” said Vannya with excitement. “You mean they reproduce like trolls do? Just cut off a piece of them and a new thull grows?”

“No. That is not the case. It takes two thulls to reproduce. In fact, they mate for life. What they do is . . .” He pursed his lips. “I realize this may sound strange to you, but what they do is, the couple goes off together and finds a shallow pond. They fight off any predators in the area and then they each take the smallest finger of their right hand and, uh, tear it off.”

There was a collective wince.

“Like I said, strange,” Stolz continued. “They press these two torn digits together and lay them down in the pond. These fingers grow together into a single mass of tissue. The parents stay at that pond, protecting it until it eventually becomes a thull child,” he said. “Oh, and their torn off fingers grow back, of course.”

“Huh,” said the imp.

“But Mellinda changed that, too,” Vannya presumed.

“Indeed. Waiting for regular reproduction was too messy a process for her to deal with. She wanted an army and she wanted it fast. So she modified their reproductive system and tied it in with their regenerative properties. You see, if you cut off a piece of a thull and it isn’t quickly reattached, the piece dies. The thull then slowly regenerates its lost flesh. But with Mellinda’s changes, cut off a piece and you would get a new thull.”

“So she could raise an army, simply by cutting her soldiers into pieces and waiting for them to grow again,” Vannya said. “Mellinda did that in this last war too.”

“She what?” said Stolz in surprise. “What do you mean? What war? Mellinda is long dead. I hadn’t gotten to that part yet.”

Vannya opened her mouth, but Jhonate cleared her throat in warning. “We can explain that part to you later, Stolz. For now, please, continue your tale.”

“Very well. Yes. Don’t confuse me. Where was I? Right. All these changes that Mellinda had made to the physical nature of the thulls created an unforeseen side effect.” He squeezed his hands together excitedly as he told this next part. “You see, she had tampered with the basic laws of nature. In every intelligent species of life, be it plant or animal, it takes two individuals to reproduce. This is one of the requirements for obtaining a soul. Every thinking being in this world is a unique combination of the qualities received from both its parents.”

“Ohhhh. I think I get it, Willy. Ho! This explains so much,” said the imp gleefully.

Vannya raised an eyebrow. “So this is why a troll has no soul?”

“It is the beginning of why,” Stolz said. “It was a gradual thing, actually. Each of these modified thulls started out with a complete soul. But the consequence of Mellinda’s meddling was that, when a piece was cut off these complete thulls, part of their soul was torn away and became attached to the new creature that was created.

“Keep in mind that our souls are what give us intelligence and a sense of individuality. Therefore the more that one of these new thulls was cut apart, the less intelligence that remained. After hundreds of generations all that was left were tiny shreds of soul. The end result was the mindless trolls we know today. The only remnant of that original soul that remains is its fierce hunger; the need to give the body the fuel it needs so that it can power its intense regenerative magic.

“Of course, when Mellinda discovered what she had done, she was ecstatic. Her army would now be more fearsome and far easier for her to control with her spirit magic.”

He rested his chin on his fingertips. “There was one more development that came from the process of creating this army. One of the original thulls didn’t react well to the constant soul tearing that came from Mellinda’s harvesting methods. Its regenerative magic went out of control. It swelled up and began obtaining strange growths on its body. The pieces cut off of it continued to become regular trolls, but this thull’s deformations grew larger and larger, and it required more and more food to keep its body alive.

“By this time, Mellinda had an army large enough for her purposes. She set out from Razbeck, declaring herself the troll queen. She left this rapidly growing thull behind and instructed her servants to continue cutting pieces off of it. They did so, and sent these pieces all over the known lands, spreading them like seeds. They reasoned that when Mellinda returned from her conquest of Malaroo, she would surely wish to conquer everyone else.”

“And she would already have armies in every country and kingdom,” Willum replied in awe. “So that’s why we have trolls just about everywhere.”

“Indeed,” said Stolz. “And if she had returned from Malaroo victorious, she may have taken the rest of the world and who knows? She might even be ruling today. Thankfully, she was stopped and the ‘troll seeds’ she sent out everywhere didn’t fully take root.”

The bonding wizard stood. “Ah! They are returning. It seems that Bluth and your friend had swift success.”

Deathclaw was the first of the two to appear, the tall grass parting in his wake. He carried a large silver-scaled fish under each arm. They flapped weakly. He had speared them with his tail barb from the shoreline and they each had circular puncture wounds in their sides.

Bluth emerged from the water a moment later with two fish of his own. One of them was silver scaled like Deathclaw’s catch. The other one was a mottled green and had razor sharp teeth, one of Stolz’s putrifin.

The bonding wizard looked to Jhonate. “Must we build a fire and cook them out here? I have a perfectly serviceable stove and pans inside. Of course they will need to be cleaned.”

Jhonate sighed. “Jhexin and Willum, go help Stolz tidy up his cabin. I will work on those pans. Deathclaw, clean those fish. Vannya . . .” The mage had sat down on the step and was pouring over her notes, every once in a while jotting down notations. “You sit there and be useless as usual.”

“Hmm?” Vannya said, not looking up from her writing.

Jhonate shook her head and ushered everyone to work. Willum and Jhexin grumbled, but tidying up the place wasn’t as hard as it looked. Soiled garments were removed from furniture and dropped into a washbin, and Stolz produced a stiff bristled broom that he used to scrape the mostly dried thull slime from the cabin’s floor.

Jhonate had given herself the worst job. It seemed that there wasn’t a clean plate or pot or pan in the place. She took them out to the water’s edge to work on them and was still at it when the rest of them had finished. It was at that point that Vannya realized she was the only one not helping. The mage ran down to the water’s edge and used a quick spell to clean the dishes on the spot. Jhonate gave her a terse thank you and Vannya blissfully carried some of it back to the cabin, unaware of the glower that Jhonate directed at her back.

The meal itself was quite good, if a bit bizarre. Stolz prepared it himself. The silver scaled fish had a soft, but mild texture and was well seasoned with a local herb Willum was unfamiliar with. Willum, Jhonate, and Jhexin declined to eat the putrifin, but Vannya was quite curious to discover what a fish would taste like after a lifetime of eating troll slime.

In the end, Stolz only cooked half of it, which he shared with the mage. Deathclaw and Bluth ate the rest. Vannya declared it ‘quite fishy’, but bravely cleaned her plate. Deathclaw merely shrugged and said it tasted as he imagined troll would taste. He then picked up one of the leftover fish heads to munch on, before walking out the door.

The rest of the group finished their meal and were cleaning up when Deathclaw returned. He was carrying the leather-wrapped body of the troll thing over one shoulder. He dropped it on the floor and said to Stolz, “I have smelled traces of something very much like this in the grass nearby. Tell me what it is.”

Stolz blinked at him in surprise and Jhexin winced. “Did you have to bring it in here?”

Vannya said, “Actually, Stolz, this is the reason we came here to see you.”

The mage briefly explained their mission and Stolz, his eyes filled with curiosity unwrapped the body. It looked much the same as it had on the day Jhonate had killed it. Vannya’s preservation spells had done their job well.

Bluth bent down close to the corpse and sniffed at it. He looked up at his bonding wizard and something unseen passed between them. The expression on Stolz face changed to one of concern.

“All of these deformities . . .” Stolz crouched beside the body and reached out to touch the creature’s nose. “This creature is partly human.”

“Yes,” Vannya said. “And what you’re seeing isn’t just cosmetic. I have thoroughly examined it with magic and several of its internal organs are human as well. Perhaps the most compelling evidence, though, is that it was using bewitching magic to control other trolls when Deathclaw encountered it.”

“It also showed expert skill with a throwing knife,” Deathclaw added.

Stolz’s hands shook as he touched various points on the body. “The change from one type of flesh to the other is seamless.”

Vannya nodded. “It is my opinion that the creature wasn’t just magically put together like, say, the rogue horses. This creature was grown this way.”

“I-I see what you mean,” he said, swallowing. He covered it back up with the leather. “This isn’t the only one? You mentioned others?”

“My brother Hubrin was leading a search party looking for Xeldryn when they were attacked by three more such beasts,” Jhonate said.

“Their bodies were quite desiccated when I arrived,” Vannya said. “But each one was a distinct mix of troll and other animals. One of them was part human.”

Stolz backed away and sat down heavily on his wicker couch. He took off his glasses and wiped his brow. “I was afraid that something like this might happen.”

“Ho-ho! He knows something, Willy. Something good.”

“What were you afraid of?” Vannya asked.

His voice was shaken. “I do not know how I can explain this without saying things I shouldn’t.”

“Are you saying that this somehow has something has to do with the origin of the Troll Swamps?” asked Willum.

He didn’t answer right away and Jhonate pressed him. “My father sent us on this mission and the more I hear, the more I think he had a suspicion that it had something to do with this secret. Why else would he send us to the one man besides him that knows it?”

Jhexin nodded. “That is right. You should go ahead and tell us. Besides, if father is angry, you can just tell him that Jhonate made you talk. He would believe you.”

“But . . .” The bonding wizard wilted under their collective gaze. Finally, he sighed. “Very well. To explain this, I must continue the story of the Troll Queen’s conquest of KhanzaRoo.”

Vannya took her notebook out again and nodded at him to continue.

Stolz began, “Mellinda descended from the mountains of Razbeck with a hundred thousand of her newly created trolls. She controlled this army with the power of her bewitching magic alone and it is said that wherever this army passed, the people heard her voice in their minds saying, ‘Hear this and tremble. The Troll Queen has risen.’”

He shrugged. “Or something of that nature. I have heard different versions. It is hard to say what the original statement was after all these years. It’s one of the difficulties that comes from a legend that is passed along by word of mouth. I’ve often wondered-.”

“Enough tedium,” Jhonate said sternly. “Continue with the story.”

Stolz raised his eyebrows. “It’s just something to keep in mind. The point I was making was that the version I was told may not be completely accurate and . . .” He trailed off at the look in Jhonate’s eyes. “W-well, when Mellinda arrived in Malaroo with her army, she set out directly for KhanzaRoo.

“This time, the people were prepared for her arrival. One of Mellinda’s servants had betrayed her and sent word to the new High Priestess. Malaroo’s most powerful witches were waiting to disrupt the Troll Queen’s assault. Mellinda’s magic was immense, but controlling the minds of a hundred thousand beasts was difficult enough without resistance. The troll army broke under the might of the Roo defenders. They were set afire and scattered.

“Mellinda was furious, but she wasn’t beaten. She had seen the damage that the combined slime of a hundred thousand troops had done to sections of the swamp and it gave her an idea. She sent word back to the palace commanding her servants to bring her the deformed thull she had left behind.

“By the time it arrived several weeks later, the thull no longer resembled the creature it had once been. It had grown and its misshapen and elongated body had to be loaded on top of several wagons in order to move it. Troll limbs and various body parts protruded from it at odd angles and it produced such a flood of slime that the servants hadn’t been able to use fire at any time in their journey.”

“This thing was a troll behemoth,” Deathclaw said in recognition. He hadn’t been there for the first half of the story, but had quickly caught on.

“Ah yes,” said Stolz, nodding in approval of his knowledge. “The first one ever and it suited the Troll Queen’s purposes just fine. She reached her magic into its mutated body and changed its nature further. She caused it to burrow into the ground beneath the swamp and commanded it to grow. And it did.

“You see, the waters of the Roo homeland are filled with nutrients. Decayed bits of plants and animals, algae and insects, little organisms that we can’t see with our eyes. All of it exists in the swamp and Mellinda taught this behemoth how to absorb it. With this nearly limitless supply of energy, the creature grew and grew, burrowing until it had penetrated every waterway in KhanzaRoo.”

“The great disaster,” Jhonate said in awe. “That is how she did it.”

“Indeed,” Stolz said. “The slime produced by its immense body polluted the water, killing the fish and much of the plant life. The evaporated slime coalesced into deadly flammable clouds that floated through the swamp. The ancient Roo were beaten and they didn’t even know how she had done it. The people tried to cling to their great cities, but the Troll Queen wasn’t finished. She created a great wound in the side of the behemoth and harvested a new army of trolls. Now that the Roo people didn’t dare to use fire to combat them, her troops overran the swamps, driving out her former people. Mellinda had taken her revenge.”

“Then this is why every attempt to retake the swamps has failed,” Jhonate said, her face pale. “How do you defeat an enemy that large and pervasive?”

Stolz nodded. “This is the truth that the Prophet imparted to Protector Jarvis bin Tayl those years ago. He told him that the Troll Swamps are no longer the homeland of the Roo-Tan. Our homeland is where we live now, protecting the grove as we promised. The swamps belong to the Troll Mother, for that was the name that Mellinda gave the great behemoth that lives beneath the waters.”

“A behemoth that big . . .” said Deathclaw, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword. “This is what you long to slay. Is it not, Star?”

“A fascinating story!” said Vannya. She had filled her notebook and started on another. The mage winced and shook her writing hand, working out a cramp. “When I return to the Mage School I shall research this further. I will likely need to look at the newly unsealed histories for the details.”

“I have a question,” Willum said. “What does all of this have to do with these new creatures we are investigating?”

“Well, I have been trying to decide how best to explain my theory on this,” Stolz said. He hummed thoughtfully. “I believe that the answer is tied into the very nature of the Troll Mother herself. You see, over the past few centuries, the behemoth has undergone a change in her nature. An evolution if you will. Its slime production has slowed. The flammable mists are more rare and the number of trolls living in the swamps has declined. The theory I told your father was that it had gone dormant.”

“I see,” said Jhonate. “Then this is why you have been training those fish to eat troll flesh. You think that they will devour this creature.”

“Bit by bit,” he said. “It is a large undertaking, something that I do not hope to complete in my lifetime, but I have seen it as a legacy that I could leave our people. One day we would retake KhanzaRoo. It is a dream that your father shares.”

“But how could that work?” Jhexin asked. “Why would this thing allow itself to be eaten? Would it not just consume these fish?”

“The Troll Mother has become large and inactive and doesn’t feel pain like you or I. The constant nibbles of fish would likely be of little concern for her. Besides, the Troll Queen modified her to consume nutrients on a much smaller level. It is rare for her to eat a living creature.” He scratched his head. “Or at least that was my belief before.”

“Before what?” Willum said.

Deathclaw turned toward the door. He slid his sword part way from its scabbard. “Something approaches.”

“Stand back,” Bluth said, placing a hand on the raptoid’s shoulder. Deathclaw’s eyes narrowed and his lips pulled back, exposing his teeth in a long hiss.

Stolz stood from the couch and moved to stand in front of the door. “Now, I told you before that two bonded was all my weak magic allowed. You haven’t yet met my second. It is my cat, Yowler.”

Deathclaw’s nostrils flared. “That is no cat.”

“Ho-ho! It sure isn’t,” the imp agreed. “Wait till you see this, Willy.”

What is it? Willum asked.

“You’ll see soon enough.”

“She is no threat,” Stolz assured them. “Please stay calm.” He opened the door. “Come, Yowler. Say hello to my friends.”

What came up the steps was unlike any cat Willum had ever seen. It was large, its shoulders reaching the height of Stolz hips. He supposed that its basic shape was feline, but it was greenish and coated head to tail in slime. The front half of the cat was covered in bristling fur that was matted and slime soaked, but the back half of its body was hairless and glistened with the consistency of troll skin. It had a vicious maw full of razor teeth, but the most disturbing part of all were the two trollish red eyes that looked around the room at them.

Stolz crouched next to it and pet it with long strokes, ignoring the slime that clung to his hand. The cat leaned against him and arched its back and closed its eyes as it let out a rumbling purr.

“Eww,” said Jhexin.

“Bluth found her nearly ten years ago, just a kitten prowling the swamps,” Stolz said. “He took a liking to her and picked her up to bring back and show me.”

“She was like this . . . as a kitten?” Vannya said, her eyes wide. She was so entranced in her observation of the cat, that she had stopped writing.

“No-no,” said Stolz. “Yowler was just a regular cat back then. A tawny one with stripes. I have no idea how she ended up out here alone. Perhaps she wandered away from one of the villages. I had just lost my previous bonded, a beautiful lala bird that had died of old age. Her name was Miss Treesh and I missed her terribly.”

“This guy loves the details,” Theodore grumbled.

“When Bluth brought Yowler to the door, we bonded immediately,” Stolz continued. “Such a good cat. A strong mouser. A real cuddler. Would you believe she saved my life once? We were-.”

“What the hell happened to the thing?” Vannya blurted. Stolz gave her a stunned look and her freckled cheeks reddened. “I . . . apologize for my roughness. My mind is just focused on the mission. Uh, how did your lovely cat become . . . this?”

The bonding wizard cleared his throat. He let go of the cat and it wandered to the rear of the cabin, where it curled up on the slime-soaked grass mats that covered Bluth’s bed. “It was about eight weeks ago. Yowler became distressed. She cried out in alarm through the bond. The vivid image of sharp teeth flashed through her thoughts and she disappeared.”

He put his hand on his chest. “I panicked. At first I thought she was dead, but I have experienced the death of a bonded before and this wasn’t it. She was just gone. The bond couldn’t even give me a direction as to where she was. I went to the place where she had last been but I saw nothing.

“About a week later, I felt her presence again. She was deep in the swamp and unconscious and . . . different. I tried to wake her, but she couldn’t hear me. Then one morning, she awoke. Her mind was wild and hungry and strange. It took a while for me to get through to her, but then she recognized my voice. Slowly her memories returned and she came home like she is now. She is still Yowler, but she is part troll.”

“And you think that what happened to her has something to do with this Troll Mother that lives under the swamp?” Vannya asked.

“I wasn’t sure before, but now that I have seen the creature you brought to me . . . I am confident,” he said. “I have searched Yowler’s memories and it is a bit hazy, but when she awoke, there were a group of people there.”

Stolz gestured at his eyes. “The way her trollish vision works doesn’t give me a clear view of what they looked like, just blobs of heat without a great deal of detail. But there were many of them. She felt a kinship with this people as if they were family to her in some way. If it hadn’t been for her bond with me I believe she would have stayed with them. What if these creatures that you have run into are part of this group? People that were swallowed by the Troll Mother and reborn as something new?”

“By the gods,” said Jhexin, his stunned eyes locked with Jhonate’s. “All those missing villagers. What if they were not captured by the Roo-Dan after all?”

“Our people. Taken . . . and changed,” said Jhonate in horror. “Turned into monsters.”

Chapter Eighteen

“Let’s us go back to the weirdies!” Durza complained, tugging on the back of Talon’s robes. Her voice was high pitched and nasal. “Master’ll find us when he’s ready.”

“Ssilence!” Talon said. She was on all fours, examining the tracks of a creature she was unfamiliar with. The track was over a week old, but she could see that it had clawed feet and its scent was teeming with magical overtones. The area was covered in such tracks. “There may be enemiess nearby!”

If someone saw the two of them from a distance, they would have made for an odd sight on the outskirts of the swamps. One woman concealed under hooded black robes. One red-headed woman wearing a frilly light blue dress. Up close, their presence would have been cause for alarm.

Talon had once been a raptoid but, under the constant magical ministrations of Ewzad Vriil, had been transformed into a lithe, quick, and deadly assassin. Durza’s leathery and mottled green skin didn’t at all match the wig and dress she wore. She was a clumsy gorc that had been born with powerful bewitching magic.

Durza stomped her foot. “I telled you there’s not no enemies! My witchy witch magic says there’s only frogs and bugs and a cat and a turtle . . .” she squinted her eyes shut and pointed a dirty finger to the north. “And a piggy. Maybe you catch the piggy and we eat it? I like to eat piggies.”

Talon hissed, wanting to tear the stupid red wig off of the gorc’s head and stomp it into the mud at the side of the trail. Only she had already done so twice already this morning and it hadn’t fixed anything. Both times the gorc had merely put the dirty thing back on her head and increased her whining. Durza had an obsession for the trappings of humanity. She loved dresses and wigs and makeup, anything that made her feel beautiful. She’d still be wearing those awful ill-fitting human shoes if Talon hadn’t cut them to shreds.

“No piggiess,” Talon snapped. Then again, the thought of slaughtering a pig was appealing to her. “Maybe later. Firsst we go back to the cave. We see what the Masster wantss of uss.”

“Don’t wanna see him now!” Durza complained. She stepped off of the trail and stumbled in the dense foliage, her long frilly dress catching underfoot. She swayed and her voice took on a plaintive tone. “Let’s us stay here tonight. Cook the piggy, Talon. We go back to the weirdies in the mornin’.”

Much had changed since Talon and Durza had left Pinewood over six months ago. The thing that had come to vex Talon the most was that Durza no longer feared her. Once Durza had realized that Talon no longer intended to kill her, she had become a lot less willing to do the raptoid’s bidding. The result was constant complaining.

Durza still did what Talon demanded eventually, but nothing came easy. It took every ounce of self-control the raptoid had not to cut her or beat her every time Durza argued. Self-control was something relatively new for Talon and it was something that she had very little of. She feared that one day she would snap and kill the gorc. She had nightmares where this would happen and when she awoke to find Durza still alive, Talon considered leaving.

Matthew, the ancient and powerful man that was Talon’s new master, said that this was a good sign. He told her that the very fact that she feared for the safety of her friend showed that she wasn’t as broken as she thought. This friendship was a healthy thing for her.

Despite his assurances, it was a constant struggle. Both Matthew and John had muted the darkness inside her, yet Talon felt the compulsion to kill constantly. She had found her claws inches from the gorc’s throat many times.

“Do you not ssee that the army was here?” Talon reasoned. “Masster may be hurt!”

Some time ago, the Prophet had come to the master’s cave to warn him that an army was approaching. An ‘army of demons’, he had called it. Talon wasn’t sure what made something a demon, but she had found the tracks of kobalds and this new creature. There had even been a few humans and gnomes mixed in. Talon wasn’t good at figuring numbers, but she knew there were a lot. Enough that she was worried for Matthew’s safety.

“I’m not worried about the master.” Durza said. “He is big magical like the Prophet man. I like the weirdies. I wanna go back there.”

Talon scowled. The weirdies was Durza’s name for the creatures Matthew called thulls. Talon found the presence of the large passive beasts disturbing. How could something so formidable be so gentle? It made her itch. Durza, on the other hand, found the way that their simple minds reacted to her magic comforting. This was the first time she had been this reluctant to leave the village, though.

Talon stopped and turned on the gorc, her voice tinged with suspicion. “Why iss you acting thiss way? You alwayss want to ssee Masster. You like his cookingss.”

Durza folded her arms and looked away, refusing to meet Talon’s eyes. “Not today. Today I like the weirdies best.”

“What iss it?” Talon said, coming closer and baring her teeth threateningly. “What doess you know? Does your magic ssee ssomething?”

Durza turned completely away from her. “Nope.”

Talon grabbed the gorc’s shoulder and spun her back around to face her. Talon’s claws punctured the frilly dress, digging into Durza’s skin. A soft, but insistent voice in the back of her mind cried, Tear her. Bleed her. Eat her! Talon pushed back the compulsion. “What do you ssee, Durza?”

“Ouch! You is hurtinged me, Talon. You . . .” Durza had learned where Talon’s breaking point was and knew that the raptoid was very close to it. She sighed. “Master is not there. He gone!”

“Where?” Talon said, tightening her grip.

“Agh! I dunno. Ow-ow-ow!” Durza gasped.

Talon forced her hands to unclench. “Why did you not ssay thiss before?”

“Master sayed not to. Ooh! My dress!” Durza said, looking at the small tears in the fabric. “This’ll be ruined now too!”

Talon felt no guilt about that. The gorc had ruined four of the dresses she had dragged from Pinewood already. This one was already filthy and ragged, looking much less like the powder blue it had been and more like the dried mud and troll slime that coated it. Talon would much rather Durza give up her obsession with such dresses. All they did was slow her down.

“When did he tell you?” Talon pressed.

Durza pouted. “When we was leavin’ the cave. Master talked to me in my brain. He sayed that he was maybe leavin’ and he telled me to try and keep you from chasin’ after him as long as I could.”

Talon hissed. This explained the gorc’s behavior over the past few days as she had whined and cajoled, using every way she could think of to delay their return. She turned away from Durza and shed her black robe. Leaving the cumbersome thing behind as she headed for Matthew’s cave.

“Wait for me!” the gorc hollered. She picked up Talon’s robe and hiked up her dress to try and keep up.

Talon sped through the jungle undergrowth, keeping to tight trails that she had followed many times over the last few months. If she hadn’t been so concerned for her master, she would have enjoyed the freedom that came from shedding the heavy garment that Matthew made her wear.

He had told her that the robe’s main purpose was to hide Talon’s true nature from the thulls in the village, but she had been able to feel the calming magical influence that he had woven into its fibers. Right now she did not want to be calmed.

The closer she drew to Matthew’s cave home, the more evidence there was of the army’s invasion. The demons must have camped there for at least two nights. Vines and small trees had been hacked down and sections of earth cleared for the setting of tents, while scattered here and there were the cold black husks of abandoned cook fires.

Soon, she heard the sound of rushing water. The area right around Matthew’s waterfall showed the most damage. The area had been completely wiped clean of foliage and there was refuse scattered about.

Talon’s heartbeat quickened with anger as she ducked behind the waterfall to find her master’s front door left wide open. Matthew’s floor and the fine rug that sat in front of the fireplace were soaked from the constant mist of the waterfall. The interior didn’t look like a cave at all. It resembled one of the finer homes of Pinewood. Wooden walls and plush furnishings.

Everything seemed to be in its place. Talon moved to Matthew’s workbench and opened the chest he stored beneath it. Several items of magical power were there, including the last remaining white orb. She thought that strange. Whatever the army had done here, they hadn’t bothered to loot the place.

She was headed towards her master’s bedroom when a distinct scent crossed her nose. Talon let out a hissing growl. Blood. Her master’s blood.

Talon crouched down, letting her nose lead her to the place. When she found the darkish stain on the floorboards, she felt a weight lift from her shoulders. It was definitely Matthew’s blood, but there wasn’t much of it. Just a few drops. He had been wounded, but the intruders hadn’t killed him. Or if they had, they hadn’t done it here.

She was still crouched there, pondering what it meant when Durza burst through the door, a frown on her face. “I telled you he weren’t here!”

“They took him,” Talon replied, a certainty coming over her. “Thiss army hurtss Masster and took him away.”

The whiny tone left the gorc’s voice. “He knowed this was gonna happen.” Durza approached Talon and ran a soothing hand across the top of the raptoid’s scaled head. Talon felt the urge to let go of her urgency and relax. She knew that it came from the gorc’s magic. “He wanted us to stay and wait. Protect the weirdies.”

Talon drew back from her hand and stood. “You will not calm me. Not this time.”

“What is you gonna do?” Durza asked worriedly.

“I will go and ssave him. Bring Masster back,” Talon decided.

Durza shook her head violently. “No way. That army is too big-big.”

“I do not intendss to fight them all,” Talon said with a snort. “I will be quiet. I will be ssneaky. Ewwie taught me to be quiet and ssneaky.”

“But I’m not, Talon. I’m not!” Durza reasoned.

Talon cocked her head. “You are the good one. You do as Masster wishes. Sstay with the village. I will go and getss him.”

“N-no, Talon.” Durza clutched her arm and pleaded, “Don’t leave me ‘lone. Don’t leave me ‘looone.”

Talon understood her stress. The last time she had gone out and left the gorc behind, she had been captured by Mellinda. Weeks had gone by before the Prophet freed her and she was able to return. Unfortunately, she had to do this alone. She needed to use her old skills for a time and she could not do that with Durza at her side.

“I musst.” Talon caressed her arm gently, a rare sign of affection from a creature for whom affection had previously been a precursor to violence. She pulled herself out of the gorc’s grasp.

“W-wait,” Durza said, tears rolling down her cheeks. She picked up Talon’s black robes and handed them to her. “Take this. He maked them to hide you. Maybe they will help.”

Talon didn’t wish to do as she asked, but Durza’s expression was desperate. Reluctantly, she slid the robe back on. She pulled the hood down over her head. Its calming influence was subtle. She could remove it if needed.

Talon left without another word. Durza would likely just try to convince her to stay longer. She did not know if Matthew could afford that.

She set herself on the demon army’s trail, putting the gorc out of her mind. Durza would be fine travelling back to the village on her own. Her bewitching magic would keep any of the swamp’s dangers away.

Once she reached the forest’s edge, Talon noticed that the army’s tactics changed. They began hiding their tracks. They cleaned up after themselves and the magic of the kobalds left the earth undisturbed by their passing. This didn’t hide them from Talon, of course. Though they were many days ahead of her, the trail left by their magic was as easy for her to sense as a trail of blood.

She extended her senses to their limit and moved at a quick pace, avoiding any intelligent creatures and the delay that such meetings might cause. She only stopped to eat if an easy hunting opportunity presented itself. Gone were the days when Talon would torture her prey for fun. The Prophet’s help had numbed that desire, but she still savored a good kill.

As much as she had learned to enjoy the intricate mix of flavors brought on by human cooking, there was something far more satisfying about eating an animal the moment its heart stopped beating. Perhaps it was a remnant of her raptoid instincts.

She wondered if Deathclaw still hunted like a raptoid. Had he finally given up the old ways? Did he eat with fork and spoon the way his human master did?

She had heard the voice of Deathclaw’s human master on the night Matthew had sent her and Durza away. Sir Edge, the man Mellinda had referred to as a bonding wizard, had been with the Prophet when he had warned Matthew about the army. Talon wondered where Deathclaw was now? Would they ever meet again? Would he kill her if they did?

Several days passed by and Talon gained on her quarry. The army had traveled eastward, staying out of the marshes and skirting any human communities, undoubtedly using their magic to hide themselves from notice. Talon was also careful to stay concealed. Not only did she take care to lighten her tracks, she used the pheromone glands that her old master Ewwie had given her, erasing every trace of her scent just in the odd chance that Deathclaw should happen to cross them. She didn’t need her brother interrupting her just yet.

One evening, a new scent rose in the air. It was humid and salty and slightly fishy. She couldn’t quite identify it, but knew there was a large body of water ahead. At daybreak that morning she entered a clearing at the top of a large hill and froze in awe and terror.

Ahead of her, not a mile away was a long band of white sandy coastline much like the sand of the deserts of her childhood. Beyond that was a never ending mass of blue. Water, farther than Talon could see. This was what she had tasted in the air. Beautiful and massive and deadly; the ocean. She had thought there was no way a body of water could be larger than the Wide River. For a creature that had spent her entire life land-locked it was as if she was looking at the end of the world.

Talon stayed there for several minutes, feeling small and insignificant, before she forced her mind out of its stupor. She headed down the far side of the hill and focused on the army’s trail, grateful once she had entered the trees and the ocean faded from view. The trail continued east for a while and an odd frightening notion hit her mind. What if this army just kept going until they reached the ocean? What if they simply swam off, taking Matthew into the endless water?

What could she possibly do if that happened? She had swam across the frigid Wide River. Would she have the courage to enter this ceaseless expanse?

To her ultimate relief, her quarry never reached the beaches. They curved southward for a short distance. Then she realized that she was there. The demon army was camped in a large plain of thick green grasses. And they weren’t alone. Alongside the earthy mounds of the kobald camps and the spiky tents of the other mysterious demons was a vast field of domed leather structures, the strange tents of wild men.

Talon watched the movements of this army for most of the day, trying to puzzle out where they might be keeping her master. The only traces she had found of Matthew along her journey had been places where the demons had allowed him to stop and urinate. She had never seen his tracks, which told her that the army was somehow carrying him, perhaps on horseback. Since most of this army was infantry, she turned her focus on the command tents, getting as close as she dared without drawing attention.

The command tents were large canvas structures that were busy with the comings and goings of the various army leaders. Talon never saw Matthew himself, but as night came, she noticed an interesting gathering take place. Several tall and lanky gnomes exited the largest tent. They wore metal vests and carried weapons. Talon knew gnomes to be awkward and clumsy, but these moved with a fluid warrior bearing and walked in a protective formation. They were followed by two white-robed humans with red sashes across their chests and right behind them was another gnome unlike any Talon had seen.

This gnome moved as fluidly as the warriors had, but he carried himself with the regal bearing of one of those nobles that Ewwie had despised so much. He had a full head of hair and a shiny metal circlet sat on his brow, resting atop his floppy ears. He wore white robes and an empty sword sheath hung at his waist. Walking behind him was another strange person; a fat elf wearing silks.

This elite group moved to the edge of the camp, where the plains met a field of inland marshes. There they waited. What they waited for, Talon did not know, but she grew curious enough to come closer and check.

Sunlight faded from the sky and darkness, Talon’s old ally, approached. Ewwie had given her the sensitive eyes of a cat and she could see in the lowest levels of light. She drew near this strange commander’s party. The humans made a fire and a grand chair was brought down from the command tent for the gnome to sit in as he waited.

The gnome warriors spread out into the grasses and marshland, keeping a watchful eye for intruders, but this was only of minor concern for Talon. Hiding was one of her favorite pastimes and her black robes gave her added protection from the gnomes’ trained eyes.

An hour passed in which the gnome commander took tea and spoke to the red-sashed men. To Talon’s sensitive ears they might as well have been speaking directly to her. They spoke of troop movements and preparations for war. The commander replied asking for very specific details. It was all quite boring.

The old part of Talon’s mind considered how difficult it would be for her to rush in and kill this gnome. She could reach him before the humans had time to react. All she had to do was pierce him with her tail barb. The deathwhisper poison gland Ewwie had placed within her tail would do the rest. Of course, then she would have to deal with all those warrior gnomes. They seemed dangerous, but that would be fun.

Eventually Talon stopped those tantalizing thoughts. Killing this leader would be a pleasant way to get revenge on this army for taking her master, but it would not make it easier to secure him and escape. It would be best to rescue Matthew first and then see if he wished this gnome commander killed.

Just as she had decided that waiting in this place was a waste of her time, one of the gnome warriors rushed back from the marshes. It gave the commander a deep bow and said in an obsequious tone, “Warlord Aloysius, the lady Mellinda arrives.”

Talon’s blood froze. Surely she had heard incorrectly. Her old mistress was dead. Matthew had told her so. Were there other people named Mellinda?

Then she heard a group approaching from the marshes. Three individuals. Two large ones with heavy footsteps and one much lighter that walked with the familiar whisper of a woman wearing a dress.

Two hulking beasts stepped into the light first. They were nearly seven feet tall, as tall as the gnome warriors, but two or three times as thick, corded with muscles. Their light green skin glistened as with troll slime and they had a slightly trollish aroma, but their features were a mix of troll and man.

Walking between these two creatures was a human woman. Her hair was long and curled and black but for a single blond lock near her forehead. Her eyes were a striking green and her lips were full and luscious as was her figure. The way she stepped was odd and sinuous and it wasn’t until her scent hit Talon that the raptoid understood.

This woman reeked of Ewwie’s magic. On the backs of her fingers glittered Ewwie’s ten gemstones. Somehow she had taken Ewwie’s rings. Talon nearly darted forward to kill the woman right there. Then the woman spoke.

“Warlord Aloysius. So good to see you again,” the woman said with an alluring voice. A voice full of promise. The voice that fueled Talon’s nightmares.

Talon knew it right away. This was Mellinda. She looked nothing like the rotting creature that Talon had met in the dark forest, but somehow it was her. Mellinda had found a way to succeed. She had freed herself from her prison and escaped the wizards. Worst of all, she had stolen Ewwie’s powers.

Mellinda stepped forward and offered her hand. The gnome warlord stood and did not take her hand, but offered his own instead. Mellinda’s smile trembled, but she leaned forward and kissed his fingers, showing her fealty.

Talon did not know what to do. Her every instinct shouted that she should do something. Attack, flee for her life, or simply die of fear. But Talon did none of those things. She did not know why. Perhaps it was the calming influence of the robes she wore. She stayed still and she listened.

“Mellinda, you are late,” Aloysius admonished. “You were to be here at nightfall.”

Mellinda’s smile trembled again and anger flashed briefly behind her eyes, but she inclined her head. “I apologize, Warlord. The journey was long and the marshes harsh terrain. Please forgive my tardiness.”

The woman did not look like someone who had undergone a long journey through the swamps. Her dress was pristine and she smelled nothing like the troll slime and mud she should have been sloshing through.

The gnome glanced at the two beasts that accompanied the woman. “What are these beasts you have with you? Where is the troll army you promised?”

“These, Warlord, are trollkin, a mix of man and troll,” she explained. “You see, when I arrived in the swamps and travelled to the Troll Mother’s great wound, I found that the wound had closed. In its place she had created a womb.”

“A womb?” Aloysius said with an eyebrow raised in interest.

“Yes, Warlord,” she said, growing excited. “Somehow over the last thousand years, the Troll Mother changed. She has stopped making trolls and began giving birth to a new race. A race more intelligent and powerful and useful than trolls.”

“A fascinating development,” he said and approached the beasts. He walked around them, examining their physiques. The two trollkin glanced at each other in confusion but didn’t move. “These specimens are quite different from each other. This one has definite canine qualities, while this one has vestigial feathers running down its spine. Tell me, Mellinda. Are they not, in fact, creations of those rings you wear?”

“They are not,” she said. “Look at them with spirit sight. Mage sight, if you have the ability. Do you see any trace of my magic on them?”

“Perhaps not,” he replied. “Though this really does not seem possible. How would a mindless, soulless creature like the Troll Mother create a race as diverse as this?”

“Blasphemy,” growled one of the trollkin.

“The Mother is not soulless or mindless!” barked the other.

“Quiet!” Mellinda hissed. Her fingers writhed bonelessly and the two trollkin froze in place. “I apologize, Warlord. They had been told not to speak.”

He smiled in response and Talon realized that he had chosen his words carefully. He had intended to see if he would get this response from the beasts and had learned that their loyalty was not to Mellinda alone. “It seems they worship this mother of theirs.”

“Yes. Each one of them is born with a belief that the Troll Mother is their god and in a way she is. However, their goddess is loyal to me and will do my bidding,” Mellinda said.

Talon did not quite believe this statement and the gnome seemed just as dubious. “You never answered my earlier question. How can an unthinking soulless beast feel loyalty, much less produce offspring with souls?”

Mellinda curtseyed, an action that looked disingenuous on the woman, and said, “Once again, you impress me with your knowledge, Warlord. Yes, trolls are so devolved that they have become soulless. However, the Troll Mother is one of the originals, the first thulls that I modified. Her mutation was caused, I believe, by the constant tearing of her soul as I used her to make trolls.

“Somehow the scrap of soul that she had left after being transformed into the Troll Mother has grown and adapted over these long years. Her intelligence is not one that you or I would readily understand, after all she is a creature the size of the swamps. But she has learned how to create her children in a way that makes each one so unique.”

The gnome warlord pressed his palms together and touched his fingertips to his lips. “My interest has been piqued. Continue.”

Mellinda licked her lips and as she spoke, it was as if she was discovering this theory while she said it. “The Troll Mother swallows whole various beasts that she can capture, including many men and people of the other intelligent races that come close enough. She then takes the basic material of these people and combines it with her own to create something new.

“Somehow, in a way that quite honestly I have not yet discovered, she then binds the souls of these people to their new bodies. As a result of this process, they have no memory of the events of their previous lives, yet they retain vital information allowing them to be born as fully formed, thinking adult creatures. When I came across them, they had already formed a society deep within the Troll Swamps and were living in KhanzaRoo.”

Talon was completely lost at this point of the conversation, but Aloysius seemed to take it all in stride.

“An interesting development,” he said with as much emotion as a man that had just been told that he would get two rolls with his dinner instead of one. “Now tell me, how many of these trollkin are there?”

“At the moment, their numbers are not great, Warlord,” Mellinda admitted. “They number in just over a thousand.”

A laugh escaped the gnome’s lips at the same time that a flash of anger entered his eyes. “You promised me an army far greater than I could raise on my own. No doubt these trollkin are formidable foes even if, as I suspect, you brought these two because they were your two finest specimens. However, they could be twice as large and twice as strong and those numbers would still pale beside the tens of thousands I must face to take Malaroo as my own.”

Mellinda took this berating meekly as if expecting that it would come. “This is true, Warlord. Which is why I have come to make you an offer that will improve both our situations.”

He waved a bored hand. “Continue.”

She gave him a sultry smile. “I have it on good authority that your current allies, this Mer-Dan collective, has a surplus of prisoners and malcontents that have become a drain on your resources. After all, you must feed them and guard them.”

He smiled back in return. “So that is the true reason for your tardiness. You questioned some poor unfortunate individual along the way. I wonder if they still live.” He shrugged. “No matter. It is possible that your information is correct. I take it you are offering a way that we might rid ourselves of them? By feeding them to your Troll Mother, perhaps?”

Her smile became a chuckle. “It would benefit us both. Do you not agree? You send your problem children to the Mother and receive a loyal army in return.”

His smile faded. “You are unaware of my timeline, Troll Queen. In just two weeks I will be meeting with the Protector of the Grove to negotiate his surrender. As much as I would love for him to join my empire willingly, I am most certain that he will choose to fight. That, Mellinda, is the crucial moment I need your army for.

“It would take several days to deliver these problem children to the Troll Mother’s waiting mouth. Just how quickly can she process these souls?”

Mellinda’s smile did not leave her face, but her arms began to sway in a snakelike fashion. This was something that Talon’s time with Ewwie had taught her meant that the bearer of the rings had come under a great deal of stress. The woman was close to losing control. Talon’s skin itched and that muted primal part of her pleaded that she leave.

When the woman was unable to respond right away, the gnome warlord stroked his chin thoughtfully. “But perhaps your thought isn’t so far off, Mellinda. I propose an alternate plan . . .”

Chapter Nineteen

Aloysius and Mellinda were still negotiating the details of the Warlord’s plan when Talon decided to sneak away. She had realized that there was little more for her to learn from the discussion and she had no time to digest what she had seen. Matthew was still captured.

Her first intention had been to free her master later in the night while more of the army slept, but after what she had just seen, it now seemed best to attempt a rescue while the army’s commander was distracted. She had just watched him undermine and dismantle Mellinda with nothing but precisely chosen words and was now almost as wary of him as she was of her former mistress.

She slid from her protected position in the tall grass and stole away between two watchful gnome warriors. Once Talon was sure that she was a safe distance away, she climbed a nearby tree and observed the army, looking for the best route to the command tents. They had been placed in the center of the army and though there was a nice gap between their tents and the camps of the regular soldiers, she would have to pass through one of the camps to get there.

One factor in her favor was that this was not an army under high alert. The guards were lax, most of them talking with the other soldiers at their various campfires. Talon could see which groups of soldiers had decided to retire early and which had decided to stay up and converse and play games with each other.

The shortest route was through the strange spiky tents. In her short time listening to conversations between the guards earlier in the day, she had learned that the white skinned creatures with red claws that inhabited these tents were called imps. They wore strange bladed armor and she had seen them use both air and fire magic. They also seemed more alert and watchful than the other camps, so she decided against that route.

The wild human camp was a dangerous choice because they were all too awake and aware. Most of them were dancing and chanting and their fires burned so brightly that she could not find a route immersed in shadow.

Ultimately, the route she found was a circuitous one, but Talon decided that sneaking through the kobald troops was the better choice. Her time spent watching Ewwie torture some of them had taught her much about kobalds’ sensitivity to earth magic. She knew that they would hear the vibration of her feet as she crept by, but with an army this large, it would be impossible for them to distinguish between the vibrations of friend or foe. She would simply have to take care and travel between the dirt mounds that had closed their openings for the night.

She waited for a guard to pass, then released her pheromones as she made her way past the tent mounds of the kobalds. The way was easier than expected. There was one tense moment when she crept by the mound of two kobald lovers that were trying to be discreet, and were very aware of her vibrations as she passed by. But thankfully they did not seem worried that her footsteps weren’t as heavy as a kobald and she slid by unchallenged.

Now that she was past the common soldiers, there was a nice grassy gap between her and the command tents. The guards in this area were more alert and kept to a strict pattern that took her a few minutes to memorize. She made her way to the largest of the tents and crept up close, sniffing at the tiny gap in the bottom.

She caught her master’s scent right away and felt a wave of relief. Though it smelled like he had an infected wound, he was alive. And he was alone. She lifted the base of the tent as much as the canvas would allow and discovered that she had just enough room to slip underneath.

The inside of the tent was quite dark, but not a problem with her excellent night vision. Canvas walls divided the interior of the tent into several sections and she realized that she had entered an isolated corner of the tent. The decorations were bare but for two plush chairs much like the one she had seen the Gnome Warlord sitting in before.

One chair was empty, but the chair facing it was occupied. Matthew sat with his hands folded in his lap, his posture straight, and his eyes closed. He wore plain brown robes and the skin of his face, which he usually kept clean shaven, was scruffy with two weeks of beard growth. The hilt of a sword rose diagonally from behind his left shoulder. That was strange. She had never seen him carry weapons before.

“Talon?” he said without opening his eyes.

“Yes, Masster,” she replied, approaching him slowly.

“I had a feeling that you would come.” He opened his eyes and it was evident how weary he was. He looked haggard, like a man at the end of his limits. She had seen this look on men before. Men that Ewwie had sent her to hound until they died of exhaustion. “You didn’t happen to bring my pipe, did you? I had one with me, but an imp took it away.”

She rushed to his side. “Masster, I am here to ssave you.” She sniffed and realized that the sword wasn’t resting in a sheath on his back. The blade was sheathed in his back. This was the source of the infected wound that she had smelled. Talon reached for the hilt.

“Stop, Talon,” Matthew commanded calmly and she felt her hand fall away from the sword. “You musn’t touch it. He will know if you do. Besides, you are not the one who is supposed to remove it.”

“But Masster. It hurtss you. It makess you ssick,” she said.

A slight smile curled his lips. “Well, you’re right that it’s infected. Aloysius let that happen on purpose. He allows his kobald healers to come in from time to time and clean out the wound with their magic, but he’s a mean bastard. He doesn’t let it get so bad that I could die, but he also doesn’t let them heal it all the way. He knows that an infected wound is more sensitive and he also knows that a fevered mind isn’t a sharp mind. He wants me to do his bidding and the magic of his sword can only force me so far.”

“Let uss leave Masster,” Talon pleaded. “We can remove the ssword later.”

“I’m afraid I can’t leave just yet,” Mathew said bitterly. “This is my penance, you see.”

“Penance?” she asked.

“I have been neglecting my duty for a long time and now it seems I must reap the rewards of my laziness.” A sour look spread across his tired face. “Why does John always have to be the good one? He never has to go through something like this.”

“But you must leave,” Talon said, feeling a panic rise within her. She reached for the sword again.

“Don’t worry about me, Talon.” Matthew raised a hand to stop her and winced. “I am exactly where I need to be. I do wish I could get some sleep, though. The thing is this sword hurts like hell unless I’m sitting exactly still.”

“You cannot sstay with that gnome,” Talon insisted. “He is dangerouss. Besidess, the mistress is here!”

“Who?” he asked, then frowned. “Your old mistress? The Troll Queen? I thought she was destroyed.”

“As did I,” Talon said. “But I ssaw her talking with the gnome. Sshe is making an army of troll thingss and sshe has Ewwiess ringss!”

Matthew’s frown deepened. “Show me what you saw.”

Talon’s eyes narrowed. “Sshow?”

“Hold still,” he said and gritted his teeth as he raised his hand and placed it over her heart. Talon felt a warmth pass through her mind and his hand dropped back into his lap. “Blast it, that warlord is going to make this so much harder!” His eyes focused on hers. “Listen carefully to me, Talon. You must leave right away.”

Talon shook her head. “I cannot leavess you,” she hissed.

“You will,” he commanded. “You must return to the marshes and collect Durza. Then you go and find that young named warrior that came to see me. Sir Edge is his name. You know him.”

“Deathclaw’ss wizard,” Talon said.

“Yes. You must tell him what you told me about Mellinda’s return.” His brow furrowed. “I don’t think any of the major players know about her yet.”

“He will k-. . .” Talon hesitated, full of uncertainty, but finally she bowed her head in acceptance. If Matthew said it must be done, she would do it. “I will go.”

“Then leave now, because Aloysius is returning.”

“Yess, Masster,” she said and returned to the place she had entered from.

Talon felt a mix or anxiety and eagerness. It was an impossible task. Sir Edge wanted her dead. She had seen the pained look in his eyes when he realized that she had poisoned his bonding wizard friend. Deathclaw wanted to kill her too. In his mind it was the only way to fix her. Neither one would listen to the message she was supposed to give.

She lifted the bottom edge of the tent and an odd smile stretched her lips. Perhaps that was the reason for this command. Perhaps it was time for her penance.

“Oh, and Talon?” Matthew added, sensing her thoughts. “When you see your brother, don’t let him kill you. I will have need of you again.”

Talon let out a disappointed growl and disappeared into the night.

*                      *                      *

Matthew had very little time to compose himself before the gnome warlord returned to the tent. He had been in a dark place, but Talon’s visit had invigorated him. He saw it as evidence that the Creator had not completely turned away from him after all.

He hadn’t told Talon the full extent of his pain and exhaustion. It was more than the lack of sleep or the sword sheathed in the skin of his back. It wasn’t even the broken rib that one of the imp commanders had given him when Aloysius wasn’t looking. It was the pain of remorse, an after effect of the first gift that his master had returned to him.

It had come, oddly enough, the very day that Aloysius had taken him captive. The gnome warlord had announced to an exuberant army that he had full control of the Stranger. Matthew had been aware before this that the races within his realm of responsibility hated him, but that knowledge had always been a distant one. He had told himself that their hatred was a necessary side effect of his position. It was merely proof that his methods were effective.

Aloysius had brought Matthew to his command tent, sat him in a chair and began bringing in the leaders of the demon army one-by-one. The warlord told these imps and kobalds that they could not harm the Stranger, but they could tell him what they thought of him.

Vile things were shouted at Matthew. He was spat upon. One imp started to urinate on him before the gnome warrior guards dragged it out of the tent. These were humiliations that Matthew was unaccustomed to, of course, but he barely noticed them. For as each of these demons entered the tent, Matthew’s mind was opened.

As they yelled or spit or stared at him in undisguised anger, their lives passed before his eyes. He saw the pain that each of these people had felt because of his inaction. He saw the families mourn because of barren women and miscarried infants. He saw the results of the fighting caused by the enmity he had instituted between the races.

At first, he held himself numb against it. These were things he knew already from a dispassionate distance. But these revelations didn’t come from a dispassionate distance. In those brief moments that flashed through his mind, Matthew experienced their pain from their perspective. The lost children were his. The dead friends and family were his.

Eventually, he broke down. Tears streamed down his face as he begged their forgiveness. He didn’t receive it. Some of them were disturbed by his display. Others doubted his identity.

The gnome warlord was confused. He commanded the Stranger not to cry. Tears did not help Aloysius’ cause. The magic of the sword had forced him to obey. For the rest of the journey all of his sorrow was internal.

Moments after Talon left, Matthew heard the gnome warriors enter the front section of the tent. Light shone through the cracks at the top and bottom of the canvas wall in front of him. He rotated his head on his neck, ignoring the way that it pulled on the skin of his upper back as he did so. When Aloysius pulled aside a section of the canvas flap and entered, he was met by the Stranger’s unflinching gaze.

“Good evening, Aloysius,” Matthew said cheerfully.

“You will call me Master,” Aloysius commanded.

“I will not. For you are not my master,” Matthew replied.

This was part of a constant back and forth between the two of them. The gnome warlord had been dismayed to learn that there were limits to the control his sword gave him over the Stranger. Matthew had to obey most of his commands, but he could not deny his identity and he could not call anyone but the Creator his master.

This evening, the gnome warlord had thought of a few more tests to discover the limits of his control over the Stranger. He snapped his fingers and one of his red-sashed stewards entered. The man was Aloysius’ favorite. He was a mild-looking man with a head topped by curly brown hair. Aloysius called him Oliver, but the rest of the stewards knew him by a different name, one which more represented his personality. They called him Shade.

Shade pulled a kobald female into the room with him. She was of medium build for a kobald, which meant she was wide as a husky dwarf, and the stony gray scales on her chest had been painted with a black circle. This denoted her as a healing specialist.

Matthew knew her well. The first time Aloysius had brought her in the tent, Matthew had experienced her pain. She and her mate had been unable to have a child for the last twenty years. Aloysius brought the kobald in nightly to monitor the Stranger’s health. She made sure that his sword wound didn’t become too toxic, but always seemed to ignore his broken rib.

“Hello, Ralganeth. How are you this evening?” Matthew said. The kobald growled back at him in derision.

“Oliver, may I borrow your dagger?” Aloysius asked. Shade slid the weapon from the sheath at his hip and handed it to the gnome. It was wickedly curved.

Matthew ignored it, keeping his eyes on the kobald. He smiled. “Did you know that you are pregnant?” Ralganeth’s eyes widened and her hand moved to her belly. “It is early yet, just a few days. But you will give birth, thanks to Aloysius here. Twins . . . I’m not sure of the sexes yet.”

One of the first things the gnome warlord had commanded the Stranger to do was to release all limits to the races under his control. In fact, Aloysius had forced him beyond that, making Matthew push their fertility levels to the maximum. The blood magic and demon races were now excessively fertile. Every attempt at reproduction would be a success. Twins and triplets would become common place.

Matthew had tried to explain to the warlord how this was a bad idea, but Aloysius refused to listen. The population explosion that would occur from this would be direct proof that the races were free from the Stranger. The people would see Aloysius as their savior and adore him for it.

Aloysius approached Matthew and held out the dagger. “Take the weapon.”

Matthew had no choice but to do so. He took the dagger in his hand and shivered, fearing what the warlord might force him to do with it.

“Call me master,” Aloysius said, his voice even.

Matthew frowned. “You know I cannot.”

“Then stab yourself in the leg,” Aloysius commanded.

Matthew’s hand stabbed down of its own volition. The sharp blade pierced his thigh, gouged the bone, and sunk into the patted chair beneath him. Matthew swallowed, but refused to show his shock. Instead, he said, “Did you enjoy your little talk with Mellinda, Aloysius?”

If his knowledge needled the gnome, Aloysius didn’t show it. “Pull the dagger out of your leg.”

The blade made a wet sound as Matthew pulled it out. His face paled as he watched blood bubble and spurt from the wound. He had struck an artery. In his thousands of years of life he had never been hurt in this way before.

The gnome gestured to the kobald. “Heal him.”

Ralganeth placed her hands on his leg, applying pressure to the wound as she worked. Luckily, the wound was clean and easily repaired by a healer of her caliber. She did so quickly, with efficient weaves of water and earth magic.

Matthew gladly endured the intense tingle that came with the elemental healing. “Thank you, Ralganeth. Aloysius, I do hope that this isn’t a form of torture you plan to repeat. As uncomfortable as it makes me, I will not be able to change my answer.”

Ralganeth cocked her head at him uncertainly. “Did you mean what you said, Stranger? Am I to give birth?”

“Twins,” he repeated. “I saw the path in my mind.”

“Hmm,” said Aloysius. He nodded to Shade.

The red-sashed steward reached into his pocket and pulled out a small wooden rod. There was a loud pop and the kobald was paralyzed, a grin frozen on her scaled face. Her only movements that the complicated spell allowed were the beat of her heart and the slow rise and fall of her chest as she continued to breathe.

“Stab her in the leg, Stranger,” Aloysius ordered.

“How does this prove anythi-?” Matthew’s arm thrust forward as if of its own volition. The kobald’s scaled skin was tough, but the blade was a fine one. The dagger pierced deeply, stopping when it hit bone. Matthew grimaced, hoping that the wound wasn’t as dire as his had been. “Stop this, Aloysius! What purpose could this possibly serve?”

“You will not give me orders,” the warlord commanded and Matthew found himself nodding in acquiescence. Aloysius rested his hand on the lip of the empty scabbard at his waist. “When I first acquired the Sword of Mastery, I tested its abilities thoroughly. I know exactly what it can and cannot make people do. You, however have proved an exception to the rule and this means that I must experiment again.”

“Aloysius, you already know that I have to obey you in all things but one,” Matthew said. “You cannot replace my master and I cannot serve two.”

“Indeed? It seems another test is in order,” Aloysius decided. “Withdraw the dagger.”

Matthew pulled it from the kobald’s leg and was relieved when the blood merely dribbled from the wound, but he had an idea of what was coming next. He closed his eyes and called out to his master. Please don’t let him make me do this. Please!

“Kill her,” Aloysius said.

Mathew’s arm darted forward, but stopped. The tip of the blade quivered mere millimeters from the skin of her chest. Matthew breathed heavily. Thank you. He had never before taken a life with his own hands.

“As I suspected,” said the gnome warlord. “You may retrieve your weapon, Oliver.”

Shade strode forward and took the dagger from Matthew’s hands. He then wrapped an arm around the kobald and placed the tip of the blade over her heart. He grinned. “What shall I do, Master?”

Aloysius raised a calming hand and said to the Stranger, “So we have learned that I cannot make you kill, at least not directly. But can you break one of your rules in order to save another? Call me master or I kill the healer.”

“Please wait,” Matthew said. “This would prove nothing. You have already determined that I can’t call you master. What if we were to come to a compromise?”

“I should not have to compromise with someone under my control!” Aloysius snapped. His eyes were wide and his lip curled. Matthew had heard the warlord raise his voice a few times in the past, but this was the first time that he had seen Aloysius lose his temper.

“Compromise was a poor choice of words,” Matthew admitted. “Look, I can see that you don’t like it when I use your name in a casual manner like I have been. What if you were to command me to call you Warlord Aloysius instead? This way I use an honorific. Your followers will see this as a sign of servitude.”

The gnome glowered at him for a moment longer. Matthew’s suggestion was something that he could have done at any time had he not been so fixated on hearing the Stranger call him master. Then the emotion cleared from his face. “You will not speak to me casually at any time.”

“As you command, Warlord Aloysius,” Matthew said, bowing as much as he could with that sword in his back. “You see? I think that sounds pretty good.”

Aloysius nodded to Shade and the steward shoved the dagger deep into the kobald’s chest. Ragoneth didn’t so much as shudder when her heart was pierced. The only evidence of her death was the stillness of her chest.

“Why, Warlord?” Matthew said numbly. He had seen a glimpse of her future. The kobald had held two children. Why take that away? “I followed your command.”

“The damage had been done. I could not let her leave here after seeing you defy me,” the gnome warlord replied. “Word of the sword’s shortcomings cannot get around.”

“You make it hard to redeem yourself, Warlord Aloysius!” Matthew snarled.

Aloysius arched an eyebrow. “Redeem myself? I do not seek redemption, Stranger. I seek results.”

“And what is it that you want?” Matthew asked. “Beyond conquering Malaroo, what is your end goal?”

The gnome cocked his head, looking at him as if the answer was obvious. “Why, to save the world.”

Matthew blinked at him, making a sudden realization. “You know what’s coming, don’t you?”

Aloysius smiled. “I began studying the signs as soon as I suspected what I was. Once I was sure, I had no choice but to act. The only way the known lands will survive is under my rule.”

Matthew swallowed. This was all his fault. He should have been there from the moment this gnome was born, grooming him. Preparing him. Blast it, that’s what John would have done in his place. Now Matthew was faced with a monster. Was there time to turn this around?

The gnome warlord chuckled at his reaction. “Oliver, dispose of her, would you? Discreetly? And you’ll need to pick out a new healer do deal with our prisoner.”

“Of course, Master,” Shade replied. With some effort, he pulled the dead kobald from a standing position and dragged her out of that section of the tent.

“As for you, Stranger, I would hope that you have learned something this evening,” Aloysius said. “Undermining me will do you no good and will likely just hurt others. I don’t wish for any more innocents to meet the same fate as poor Ragoneth. Sit and think on that tonight.”

He turned to leave, but Matthew said, “Wait. Please, Warlord Aloysius. If I may, might I offer you some counsel?”

The gnome looked back, his expression curious. “You? Counsel me?”

Matthew bowed his head humbly. “I know that you have grown to despise me, but despite my recent slothfulness, I have a great deal of knowledge and experience gained over the ages.”

“You misunderstand me,” Aloysius said. “I don’t despise you. In fact, I quite admire your work. Your master gave you a difficult assignment with our races. You used a thorough process of experimentation to determine the most effective use of your time and powers in your rule. You made multiple disastrous mistakes which I am now forced to fix, but don’t mistake my determination for a lack of respect.”

Matthew licked his lips. “I do not refute your statement, Warlord. I merely offer you my knowledge and advice.”

“You offer me something that I can demand from you at any time as it is,” the gnome warlord pointed out.

“Nevertheless, I offer it freely,” Matthew said. “Tonight, my counsel would be regarding your discussion with the Troll Queen.”

“Indeed?” said Aloysius curiously. “How did you know about my little meeting with the Mellinda anyway?”

Matthew realized how dangerous bringing up the subject had been. If Aloysius commanded him to divulge his source, Matthew would have to tell him about Talon. Luckily, Aloysius hadn’t couched the question that way. This left the Stranger room for a half truth. “I may be under condemnation, but I have not lost all ability to communicate with my master.”

“Hmm,” Aloysius said. “In the future, you will not discuss such things unless you and I are alone, do you understand?”

“Yes, Warlord,” Matthew said. This was a good start.

“Very well, then. What is this ‘counsel’ you offer?” he asked.

“I would suggest that you not trust her, Warlord,” Matthew said. “Her desires are not the same as yours.”

Aloysius chuckled. “Trust her? I am aware how dangerous she is. I am merely taking advantage of her resources while our goals coincide.”

“I don’t believe they do coincide,” Matthew said. “While you might conquer the grove to command its resources, her only goal is to destroy it. You know how disastrous that would be.”

“You do sound like a counselor,” the gnome said with distaste. “I will allow no harm to come to the grove. I will merely intend to fix the way its defenses have been mishandled and add the strength of Malaroo’s armies to my own. For this purpose Mellinda has her uses. Once she has outlived her usefulness, an inevitability I admit, I will have her killed.”

Matthew frowned. He doubted it would be as easy as that. “And what of this army that she proposes to create and the Troll Mother that she claims to command?”

The gnome’s gaze became thoughtful. “Allowing the existence of such a creature has its dangers, but I find the possibilities of this new trollkin race . . . intriguing.”

Chapter Twenty

The journey back to KhanzaRoo was an uncomfortable one for Mellinda. Her meeting with the gnome warlord had proved quite frustrating. She was forced to change the timeline of her plans. Some of the changes were quite drastic. It also didn’t help that she was continually jostled this way and that by the jerky moves of the trollkin that carried her.

She had made the palanquin herself using the power of the rings. The poles that the trollkin gripped and the frame that she sat on were molded from pure ironwood. The cushions were fashioned from modified moss fibers as were the woven mesh sides and the gauzy roof that kept her out of direct sunlight. If only she had time to smooth out the path through the swamps. Unfortunately, speed was more important than comfort.

To make things worse, her two Trollkin followers were disturbed by the things they had learned during the meeting. They continually asked her questions. Was it true that she created the Troll Mother and that the Troll Mother was loyal to her? Did this make Mellinda their real god?

She told them that she had indeed been there when the Troll Mother was created, but assured them that she was not their god. Mellinda had been tempted to tell them that she was. After all, if they started worshipping her, she would have to answer a lot fewer of their questions. But she had to consider what effect this knowledge would have on the rest of the trollkin upon their return.

The people still did not trust her completely and such a revelation would likely incite rage and turmoil. The Troll King at least would see this claim as blasphemy. She was already aware that the way she had left KhanzaRoo had left doubts in the king’s mind. Shoring up the king’s faith in her was one of her first priorities. There were a couple ways to go about doing this, but she was still undecided on which course of action to choose. Arcon was little help.

“You do realize that no matter what you choose, you’re not going to convince him to march his entire race to the edge of the swamps and do battle,” the mage said.

She gritted her teeth as the palanquin was jolted to the side, one of the trollkin stepping in a muddy hole. I am fully aware of the difficulty.

Aloysius had given her a tight timetable to keep. On the day of the negotiations, she was to have the trollkin army at the edge of the swamp awaiting his command. Then, when the time was right, he required Mellinda to stage a demonstration of the Troll Mother’s power. This was going to require the Mother to extend her reach in a way that the behemoth hadn’t done since the fall of KhanzaRoo. In order to make that happen, Mellinda was going to need the Troll King to convince her to do it.

Remember how you wedged yourself into Aloysius’ good graces? Mellinda asked Arcon, a reckless idea entering her mind.

“You mean when I was forced to sleep my way into a meeting with him?” Arcon replied. “You promised me that you wouldn’t do that. If that’s your plan, be assured, I will no longer be well-behaved.”

That was not my thought, Mellinda replied with irritation. She had abandoned that plan some time ago. The Troll King was far too focused on the future of his people for seduction to work. I was thinking more along the lines of how you convinced him to make you a steward in training.

“You mean when I barged into his office and nearly got us killed?” Arcon replied.

Boldness was what you called it back then, she said.

Arcon snorted. “Yes, well I don’t see how it applies here. The Troll King isn’t so fond of that sort of recklessness.”

He is not the one we have to convince, she replied.

“Mellinda?” said one of the trollkin, interrupting her thoughts. He was currently carrying the front end of the palanquin. “I’ve been thinking.”

She forced her voice to remain reasonable. “Have you, Felberon?”

Felberon was one of her most loyal followers. He was the bulky half human with the ears and tail of a dog. He had asked her to remove the tail once, but Mellinda had refused. She found the way it wagged when he was happy adorable. She had regretted that decision when Aloysius had noticed the oddity of it.

“Well, me and Welven have,” he amended.

“Don’t bring me into this,” Welven replied. He was the trollkin with the feathered back and shoulders. Mellinda had rebuked him thoroughly for asking too many questions the day before.

“But you were thinking about it too!” Felberon insisted.

“See, we heard you say . . . Uh, when you were talking to that gnome . . .” The trollkin’s voice was filled with uncertainty and Mellinda had an inkling of what the trollkin was trying to bring up. There was one glaring question that neither of them had asked yet. She had been thinking of the best way to reply when they finally did. “You said that the Mother took our souls from someone else and put them in us.”

“That is true,” she said.

“Then who were we?” Welven asked. “Before we were us, I mean.”

“I do not know,” Mellinda said. “You may have been a Roo-Dan shaman or a Roo-Tan farmer. Perhaps even a stranger from outside of Malaroo who travelled too far into the swamps and was consumed. But in the end, it does not matter. Those memories are gone. You are trollkin now.”

“I think I was Roo-Dan,” said Felberon. “I know too much about how they do things.”

“I’m not sure,” said Welven. “I know lots about the Roo-Tan and Roo-Dan, but I don’t remember liking one more than the other. I wonder if I had a family waiting for me. Do you remember having children, Felberon?”

“I don’t remember anything really,” Felberon replied. “What do you think, Mellinda?”

Mellinda had seen her previous answer as a catch all and had hoped that they would be mollified. “These questions you have are understandable,” she said in a consoling manner as the two lumbering trollkin jostled her again. “But they are irrelevant. Do not be confused by the past. You have a new people to care for and you have me to help you do it.”

Felberon continued like she had said nothing at all, “Do you think this tail I got is because I had a dog with me when the Mother swallowed me? I know a lot about dogs.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Welven said. “What? You think I have these feathers because I was swallowed while carrying a bird? Pfft! Most of us have some weird parts of animals in us. You think we were all just walking around with pets?”

“It was just a thought,” Felberon grumbled.

“You may have to kill these two before we get back to KhanzaRoo,” Arcon observed. “They can’t be trusted to keep quiet about everything.”

He had a valid point. The two trollkin had promised to say nothing about the gnome scholar and his plans, but she didn’t think it was possible for them to keep the rest of it secret. If she still had her old powers, she could make them forget. Unfortunately that wasn’t an option.

No. I may need them, she replied. Besides, the things they know would be impossible to keep secret for long anyway. Many of them already suspect how the Troll Mother made them. The important thing is that we don’t allow it to get out of hand.

“What will you do if they decide to rebel against their god?” Arcon asked. “They may want their old lives back.”

Which is why we still need the Troll King. The Troll Mother was smart enough to create him for this purpose. When the truth is known, his people will look to him for guidance.

Mellinda’s arrival in KhanzaRoo was met with much excitement. The Mother had been busy while she was gone and there were over a hundred viable new trollkin waiting for her ministrations. The Troll King wasn’t there when she arrived, but he had ordered her brought directly to the old hospital where these newborns were being housed.

Before going inside, she gathered the closest of her followers and gave them instructions. Rumors were going to spread and she wanted to control what was said.

She entered the hospital worried about being overwhelmed, but was pleasantly surprised. The Troll Mother was getting better at her work. Most of the deformations were minor and a few were merely cosmetic. Even so, it took her all night to heal the defects.

By the time her work was finished, Mellinda was exhausted. She longed for a few hours sleep before enacting the next step in her plans, but Murtha was waiting for her at the hospital’s exit. The part-dwarf’s mood was dour. Evidently the rumors had spread faster than expected. The Troll King wished to speak with her.

Mellinda told Felberon and Welven to stay behind and followed Murtha across the city. She was not looking forward to climbing the long staircase to the king’s throne room and was relieved when Murtha led her to the High Priestess’ gardens instead.

The Troll King was waiting for her in Solitude. He sat in the lone chair, staring across the calm green waters of the lake. The water was clearer than the last time Mellinda had been there. She could see the mound of the Mother’s womb resting not far below the surface.

The Troll King looked every bit the leader that the Troll Mother had intended him to be. His jaw was strong, his gaze contemplative. His burns had all healed and somewhere his people had found him a new garment. This one was a deep purple and had a golden clasp at the shoulder.

He didn’t acknowledge their arrival right away and Murtha raised an arm, indicating that Mellinda should wait. Time dragged on. Mellinda tapped her foot impatiently for several agonizing minutes before he stood and turned towards them. He waved them forward and Mellinda noted the fury in his mismatched eyes.

“I hear that you had an eventful journey,” he said.

Mellinda gave him a deep curtsey. She lent her voice a sultry rumble. “I did, oh king. It was most enlightening. I learned things that will be most helpful for your people.”

“Helpful?” he said and some of the anger in his eyes entered his voice. “This people may very well fall apart because of what you learned!”

She feigned ignorance. “I have no idea what you are speaking about. I merely solved your little fire problem.”

That surprise bit of information had the effect she had been hoping for. He blinked in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“It has been weighing on my mind since that horrible incident at the old hospital before I left. Whether or not a trollkin’s slime was flammable seemed a random occurrence at first. But I have discovered that there are a series of glands just under the skin that can be manipulated,” she smiled eagerly. “It took some study and experimentation, but not only can I make a trollkin’s slime non-flammable. I can make them resistant to fire.”

“You can?” the anger in the Troll King’s eyes had evaporated.

“Oh yes,” Mellinda assured him.

“You disc-covered this on your journey?” Murtha scoffed.

She nodded. “It’s why I took Felberon and Welven along.”

“You sly one,” Arcon said approvingly. In actuality, she had discovered this secret a few days before she had left, but she had kept it to herself until an ideal time for the reveal came along. A time such as now.

“I can now make this change in every one of your people,” she promised. “I already did so in all of the newly born trollkin I fixed today. Isn’t that exciting news? Fire can no longer be used as a weapon against your people.”

He smiled. “Our greatest weakness erased. This news could very well have saved our people.”

“If there are still a people to be saved, K-king,” Murtha said. The part-dwarf was disturbed by the sudden change in the king’s demeanor. “What about the lies she has been spreading about the Mother?”

“I have told no lies,” Mellinda said. “I discovered the truth about where the Mother was getting your souls. This is crucial information for your people to know.”

“We did not want to know this!” Murtha hissed.

“Yes you did,” the king said. “We have all wondered about our origin. I just wish that I had been the one to reveal it to them. The people are . . . disturbed.”

“I apologize for that, my king,” Mellinda purred. “I intended to tell you myself, but I was busy with the newly born. I did not know that my servants would speak so freely to the others before I had the chance to do so.”

“Now that is a lie,” Murtha snarled. “K-king, she did this purposefully. She told her servants to do this.”

The king frowned. “She merely exposes the truth, Murtha. What does this change?”

Murtha took a step back. “But . . . If the Mother took us from somewhere else . . . changed us to this . . .” She looked down at her clawed dwarven hands, tinted green with a slimy sheen. “Many of us will want to go back. Whoever we were, we left friends and families behind.”

“Go back to what?” he asked, some of that anger re-entering his eyes. “Do any of us remember where to go to? And even if it we could return, would friends or family see us as we were? No! Going back is not possible.”

Murtha looked down. “But-.”

The king grasped her hands. “Do you feel that?”

Murtha closed her eyes as a peace settled over her. She nodded and Mellinda knew that there was an unspoken communication between them.

“No matter how the Mother makes us, she is still the Mother,” the king said. “These are the only three truths that matter. She is our goddess, I am your king, and we are the trollkin. None of that has changed.”

“Yes,” Murtha said, her confidence returning. “Of c-course k-king. You are right.”

“How does he calm them like that?” Arcon wondered. “Spirit magic?”

I am not sure. Possibly, though I do not see it with my spirit sight.

This was one power of the Troll King’s that still eluded her understanding. She had seen it many times. One of his people would doubt and he would touch them and their doubts would disappear. When she had asked Felberon about it the trollkin had been unable to answer. He would say only, ‘He is our king’.

“This should be known as a freeing time for our people!” pronounced the king. “We should embrace who we are. The Mother took us and made us stronger and now she has let us know how!”

“Exactly!” Mellinda agreed, feeling pleased with herself. This was going far better than she had hoped. And here, dear Arcon is where I bring the rest of this together. “You should be proud of being trollkin. You should be proud of the Troll Mother! She wishes for you to succeed and grow. This is why she led me to you. I-.”

“No,” said the Troll King, cutting her off.

It was Mellinda’s turn to blink in surprise. “I beg your pardon?”

“I agree that the Mother brought you here. You have been a great blessing to my people, that is evident,” he admitted, inclining his head in respect. His voice grew firm as he added, “But I will not allow you to take this fledgling people to war.”

“War?” Mellinda scoffed.

“I knew this was going too well,” Arcon said. He almost sounded pleased. “I told you we should have killed them.”

Mellinda had tried to keep Felberon and Welven by her side during her healings. She may have lost track of them for brief periods of time while she worked, but hadn’t thought they’d had time to tell that part of the story. She would be sure to punish those two idiots the next time she saw them.

“I don’t know who this gnome you spoke to was or why you promised our people’s help in fighting the Roo-Tan, but I can’t allow it,” the Troll King said. “We trollkin may be hard to kill, but our numbers are too small to throw ourselves away in battle. Especially when we have no reason to fight.”

“But you do have a reason!” Mellinda said. She had been hoping to avoid this part of the argument for now. She had wanted a few more days to build the king’s confidence in her before attempting this bit of boldness. “It is the mother’s will.”

The king’s hands formed into fists and his left eye glowed. “It is not your place to decide that, Snake Woman! When Murtha brought you here, I was trying to decide whether or not to throw you to the Mother’s maw. Do not make me do so now.”

“Time to back down,” Arcon warned.

Boldness, she reminded him. She knelt before him, a level of respect she had not given him before. “You yourself have said that the mother wishes your people to grow. This gnome I met with is a powerful warlord who has great resources at his disposal. He has promised the Troll Mother hundreds of souls, perhaps thousands depending on the outcome of his meeting.”

“Throw her to the mother, K-king,” Murtha snarled.

“She has proven too useful,” he replied. “She can take away our weakness to fire.”

Mellinda raised her voice. “With one short journey, your people could double or triple their numbers. He is not depending on you to fight. He merely needs you there to intimidate his foe.”

“She still c-can,” Murtha insisted. “She will forget who she is, but she will still k-keep her knowledge and ability. Only this time she will be loyal.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” he said thoughtfully. He reached for Mellinda.

“Great, now you’re going to have to kill them,” Arcon said. “There’s no way the trollkin will follow us after that.”

“Let the Mother decide!” Mellinda shouted. This was something she had hoped to avoid.

The Troll King’s clawed hand stopped inches from her. The human side of his face raised an eyebrow. “You wish me to speak to the Mother first?”

“No. I wish to speak to the Mother myself,” Mellinda said. She had seen the Troll King do it once before. She wasn’t exactly sure how it worked, but she was fairly certain it was a direct mental connection. “Let me tell her my plan.”

“This is not boldness. This is crazy!” Arcon said. “That thing will kill us!”

The Troll King was of the same mind. “You are not trollkin. Your flesh is different. It may not work.”

“Then she will eat me. Either way her will is done,” Mellinda reasoned.

“I do not like-k this,” Murtha said. “Throw her to the mother’s mouth! If she does not want the snake-k she will spit her out!”

“I don’t see a good option here,” Arcon warned.

“No. The Mother does not decide with her mouth. She decides with her mind,” the Troll King said. He looked back down at Mellinda, his face grim. “Very well, Snake Woman. The Mother brought you to us. We will let her decide.”

He pointed at her. “Come, kneel at the water’s edge.”

Mellinda stood and followed him down the slight slope of the grass to the water’s edge. As she knelt down, the water stirred. A hand reached from the water and the First pulled himself from the depths.

He stood, his trollish body as tall as the king’s, but much thinner. The First cocked his head and his human eyes blinked at her. “The Mother is curious,” it said with a raspy voice.

“The snake has been troublesome,” said the king. “She wishes to speak to the Mother.”

The First bowed to the king and looked at Mellinda again. “It may kill her to do this.”

“I told him just to throw her in,” Murtha grumped.

The First turned its eyes on her. “It is not your place to question the king!” Murtha looked down, subdued, and the First said, “However she will survive if the Mother wills it. Are you certain this is what you want?”

“Yes,” Mellinda said, but realized that the First wasn’t speaking to her. His gaze had returned to the king.

“Do you advise against it?” the Troll King asked.

It cocked its head again. “I am the First. It is not my place to advise, only to serve. It will be as the king wills.”

“Then step aside,” the king said. The First bowed and did so and the king crouched at the lake’s edge. He dipped his hand into the waters and closed his eyes in concentration.

“There is still time to back out,” Arcon said. “Just paralyze the lot of them. We can stage their deaths in such a way that it looks like they fought each other.”

The trollkin would find it hard to believe. Even if they did, what happens when the Mother decides to birth another king? No, this is a risk I will take. Mellinda replied. What are you so frightened for anyway? It was just weeks ago that you were eager to get us both killed.

Arcon gave her a mental shrug. “I suppose I have become used to the lie that you will give my body back when this is over.”

It is no lie, she lied.

The king removed his hand from the water and looked at Mellinda. “She will speak with you.”

There was a slight rumble beneath Mellinda’s knees. She looked into the water as the great mound of the Mother’s womb moved further back from the shore. Something else came up from the depths.

A long cylindrical stalk rose from the surface of the lake. It was perhaps two feet in diameter and made of green troll flesh. It continued to rise until it swayed in the air high above them. A large lump of pink pulsating flesh formed at the end. Then the stalk bent neck-like and the fleshy end descended towards Mellinda.

“This is bad. This is bad!” Arcon said in a panic.

No. This is good. Mellinda understood. This was the Troll Mother’s mind. For her to use it to communicate directly with it required a great deal of trust. She looked up towards it and as it neared her head, the center of the pink flesh opened up, exposing rows of sharp white fangs.

The Troll Mother’s brain enveloped Mellinda’s head completely. She let out a muffled grunt as the teeth clamped into the flesh of her face. She felt an immediate sense of panic, but reminded herself that the rings would heal her. This was just the Mother’s way to assure that their connection would not be interrupted until she was ready.

Mellinda called out mentally. She needed to make this quick before she suffocated.  Mother, I would speak with you!

There was no response. The teeth pierced deeper, gripping her skull and Mellinda cried out to the mother again. She did not understand that the mother’s preferred method of communication was chemical, not mental. Various fluids touched her skin, transmitting impulses, but she was not trollkin. They meant nothing to her.

Mellinda’s lungs ached and she began to panic. Then something pressed against her lips. A long fleshy tube forced its way into her mouth and down to her lungs. She took a deep gasping breath. The flesh tasted strange and bitter, but the mother was giving her air.

Arcon experienced every sensation right along with her. “This is worse than anything I could imagine. How about we call this off and you go sleep with the king instead?”

Mellinda was just as uncomfortable as he was, but she had different concerns. Why did she not hear the Mother? Did the Mother hear her? Did the transfer of thoughts go one way? That wasn’t how the Troll King had described it.

The Troll Mother had realized the problem by this point. She had formed an alternate solution. Further up in the Mother’s neck a thick needle was formed. A set of powerful piston-like muscles propelled it forward.

Mellinda jerked as the needle pierced her forehead, driving deep into her brain. Her body went limp on the shore. A thin tendril of the Mother’s mind exited the end of the needle allowing for direct mental contact.

Mellinda lost all sensation. She knew only blackness. Mother, can you hear me?

“I think she killed us,” Arcon said. “Oh no. Is this what death is like?”

Mellinda was relieved to hear him. No, Arcon. I have been dead. This is too pleasant. Mother? Are you listening?

Suddenly, the weight of the Mother’s mind overtook them. The ancient creature was new to this form of communication, but adapted quickly. The Troll Mother did not think in words, but in concepts. Mellinda attempted to adapt along with her.

The Mother wanted to know why Mellinda had sought to communicate. When Mellinda replied that she only wished to help her grow her children, the Mother instantly sensed the lie. She searched Mellinda’s thoughts, learning the truth.

The Mother then wished to know why she should help Mellinda get her revenge. At this point, Mellinda understood that there was no use dissembling. She opened herself up, showing the Mother how they could help each other.

Mellinda attempted to show her how she was able to fix the defects in the trollkin, but the Mother was greedy. The behemoth, brushed Mellinda’s thoughts aside and greedily poured through Mellinda’s knowledge.

There was nothing Mellinda could do. The Mother had gotten past her defenses. All she could do was sit back and endure it as the behemoth absorbed everything she could about the defects in her children and how they could be repaired. Once she had everything, she pulled away, ready to cast Mellinda aside.

Wait! Mellinda pleaded. There is more.

She showed the Mother Aloysius’s plan. She urged the behemoth to order her people to attend the meeting. The souls harvested there would give the trollkin the population surge they needed to become a true power in Malaroo.

Once again, the Mother bashed Mellinda’s thoughts aside. She searched her knowledge of the Roo-Tan, the Roo-Dan, the grove, and Aloysius’ army.

Please, said Mellinda. Do you see? Help me in this and your children will thrive!

The Troll Mother responded and this time in a language that Mellinda could understand. We shall see . . . snake.

Everything went black again.

“I think she’s gone,” Arcon said. “Are you there? Am I dead now?” His voice was almost hopeful.

No. You are still stuck with me, she replied. Her thoughts were sluggish and she still could not feel her body.

“She saw me,” he said. “She glanced through my mind as if it were nothing and cast me aside as unimportant.”

To her you are, she replied.

“It was such a violating feeling,” he said. “It reminded me of how I felt when you first put the eye inside me.”

Indeed? I thought you enjoyed that night, she said, but she didn’t care how he felt. The only reason she had bothered to respond is that he was the only thing keeping her anchored to reality. It felt as though the Mother had scattered her mind and left Mellinda to gather the pieces.

“Enjoyed?” He laughed bitterly. “That night was just the painful beginning. I wish I’d never picked you up your eye.”

Gradually, Mellinda’s ability to think returned and she began to be aware of her body again. She realized that she was lying on the bank. She could feel the softness of the grass underneath her and she could hear the chirp of frogs. When her eyelids fluttered open she saw the glassy surface of the lake.

The return of her senses brought with them a pulsating headache. She winced and the sides of her face rang out in pain. She reached up and touched the circle of deep puncture wounds around her face and finally, gingerly felt the center of her forehead where the large puckered wound still oozed.

Mellinda could feel the injuries tingle. The Rings of Stardeon were acting quickly to repair the damage. Something in the Troll Mother’s saliva was slowing the healing, but she would survive. She sat up with a groan.

“She lives,” said Murtha with disgust.

“Enough,” the king said, issuing a rare reprimand to his second in command. “The Mother has spoken.”

Mellinda turned to face them. The king was sitting in the Lone Chair, his eyes wary. Murtha and the First stood next to him and Mellinda saw that dozens more of the trollkin stood just outside of Solitude, watching.

“She has spoken?” Mellinda asked.

“We are to follow you to battle,” said the king.

Chapter Twenty One

Tarah fired. Her arrow soared through the air towards the target far below. The morning breeze carried it a bit to the left, as she had predicted, and it sank into the second ring, just missing the bullseye.

Tarah swore and reached for another arrow. She was standing on top of the high platform in the archery range at the Protector’s Palace in Roo-Tan’lan. The tower was designed to help archers practice siege warfare. The target she had just hit was a volley shot target and laid flat on the ground at the far end of the range.

“Close. Nothing to be ashamed of,” said Djeri the Looker, one hand above his eyes as he peered at the distant target. The dwarf was sitting on the platform not far from where she stood, his legs dangling off of the edge.

“Would’ve struck the center if not for that armor,” she complained, throwing up one arm as if to protect herself from the glare.

The dwarf still wore his Uncle Lenui’s famous platemail armor, though he had set his helmet on the platform beside him. Tarah had rarely been able to get him to take the armor off since his uncle had given it to him back at Coal’s Keep in Razbeck. It was polished to a high sheen and covered in intricate protective runes. On the center of the breastplate was a large red letter ‘F’ representing the proud Firegobbler family name.

“Don’t blame the armor,” Djeri said with a laugh. “It’s your father’s bow that’s the problem. He made it for hunting, not long range shooting.”

Unlike every other dwarf Tarah had met, Djeri spoke the common tongue without an accent. His father had been a half-dwarf and Djeri had found that he felt more comfortable around humans. It was one of the reasons he had joined the academy at a young age. He even preferred his beard trimmed like a human’s. He kept it short and tight to his face. Tarah found it quite fetching.

“Maybe so,” she replied and notched another arrow on the string. She pulled it back and sighted on the target again. “That still don’t mean I should miss.”

She made a slight adjustment and fired again. This time the arrow sailed just a bit too far to the right and missed the center ring again. “You’re right. It’s the bow.”

In order to even hit the target, she had to pull the wood back to its very limit. That kind of stress made it hard to be precise. It wasn’t normally an issue, because she rarely tried to shoot at this range, but she had already fired at every other target in the range at least a dozen times already and had grown bored.

“Aren’t you afraid that your heavy body could topple this tower over?” asked Esmine suddenly, appearing just behind the dwarf. She had become quite taken with the form of the little elf girl dressed as a Roo-Tan warrior. The rogue horse took that illusionary form whenever she appeared now, popping in and out of existence whenever she felt like it.

Of course, Djeri didn’t hear her and Esmine scowled at the dwarf when he didn’t respond. Djeri’s innate inability to see her illusions was a thorn in Esmine’s side, especially now that she had taken to interacting with other people besides Tarah. She made a little fist and threw a little right hook at his face, but her hand just passed through his head. She had learned to make others feel the impacts of her illusions, but not Djeri.

“Esmine wonders if we should be afraid that your big butt will pull this platform over,” Tarah said helpfully.

Esmine backed to the edge, her little arms pinwheeling. “Yeah, one more pound and-.” She lurched as if the tower was swaying and yelped as her little form fell from view, hurtling head-over-heels towards the ground below.

“Tell her it’s sturdy,” the dwarf assured her, oblivious to the rogue horse’s antics. Nevertheless, he still scooted a little bit further back from the edge.

Tarah sat down next to him. “I was a bit surprised when you followed me up here.” Climbing up a thirty-foot ladder in full platemail was no easy task.

“Yeah, well I figured we had some time alone,” Djeri said.

Willum was off with Mage Vannya helping her with some kind of magical experiment and Cletus was sparring with Deathclaw in the combat ring on the other side of the archery range’s wall. Since the Roo-Tan garrison was out patrolling, they had the range to themselves.

The dwarf placed his arm around Tarah and pulled her close. “I don’t usually get to spend much time with you during the day.”

She leaned her head onto his. “It’s kind of always been that way.”

“Yeah, but it’s been even harder this last couple weeks,” he said.

“I know.” Their relationship had begun on the road and they had rarely stopped for a breath since.

Finding time alone was a difficult proposition when travelling with a group of friends, but at least then they had been together. Since Tarah had begun training with Beth and Tolynn, she hardly saw him at all. Beth had been nice enough to let them stay in their guest house, but by the time Tarah stumbled in at night, exhausted from a hard day of training, they barely had time to say two words to each other before she was asleep.

The only reason they were together now was that both Beth and Tolynn were in the big meeting with the Protector of the Grove. Just about every leader in the city was crammed into that council room. It seemed like the string of meetings had been never ending since Willum and Jhonate had returned from their excursion with news of the troll behemoth that lived under the swamps. The leaders of the various Roo-Tan families had differing views on what acts should be taken and the protector had ordered the evacuations of the villages closest to the swamps. But now a new emergency had arisen.

A messenger from the Mer-Dan Collective had arrived late the night before with an early draft of the treaty they wished the Roo-Tan to sign. Xedrion had called Tarah in to touch the box and the scrolls it contained. Unfortunately, if there was any ill intent behind the drafting of the document the merman scribe that had copied it down hadn’t known it. Tarah had tracked the messenger just in case he knew something, but she had found nothing of value.

The meeting had begun the moment Xedrion had started dissecting the treaty. Sir Edge and Jhonate had been in the council room all night long and the list of invitees had grown. Now the heads of all the houses were there as well as Hilt and Beth and several of the elves.

“We’ll have our time once this is over,” Tarah assured him.

Djeri looked up and kissed her. “Will we?” He placed his hand against her cheek. “Once Aloysius is defeated, what happens then?”

“Well, I suppose we go home,” she replied.

“But where is home?” he asked. “Dremaldria? Your house is gone. I’ve resigned from the academy. Where do we go?”

Tarah frowned. She had tried not to think too much about that part of it. Any time it came up in her mind, she refocused on the mission. “There will be time to decide that once the time comes.”

The dwarf sighed. “I think we should discuss it now. It’s good to have something to look forward too. It helps make the long missions seem worth it.”

“The important thing is that we’ll be together,” she said.

“That’s true,” he said, nodding. “But come on. Dream with me.”

“Well . . .” Tarah didn’t know where to begin. “Where is home to you?”

He smiled. “I’ve always been a wanderer. I grew up near Corntown, but that’s definitely no place for a dwarf and a human woman to live together. Since then, I’ve just been wherever the academy sent me.”

“You could rejoin them,” she suggested.

He scoffed. “What? Are you going to join up with me? You’d have to go through Training School and then academy classes. It would take a few years to graduate.”

“I might,” she said, but she had to admit to herself it didn’t sound like the life she wanted to lead.

“What would you like to do?” Djeri pressed. “We could go back to your old home. Rebuild. You could go back to the Sampo Guidesmen guild. We could hire out together as a duo. Tarah Woodblade and Djeri the Looker, guides and trackers.”

Tarah smiled at the idea. “I don’t know about living in the old place again.”

“Why not? The old memories are burned away. We’d fill it with new ones!” he said enthusiastically.

“Well, papa wouldn’t approve of us living there unless . . .” Tarah’s cheeks reddened. It had been bothering her ever since her papa had chastised her just before saying goodbye.

Djeri knew what she was thinking. “Then, we’d get married first, of course! After that, who knows? If you want, we’ll fill that little cave of yours full of children.”

Tarah blinked at him. “Djeri the Looker, are you asking me to marry you?”

Now his cheeks were the ones reddening. He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, we’re daydreaming for now, but I’d like to. One day. But I’d want to do it properly, though. Dwarf-style. Forge you a ring and everything. I’m not much of a blacksmith, but I know Uncle Lenui would help me with it.”

Tarah swallowed. Her? Married? It wasn’t something that she ever thought would happen to her. After all, she figured that with her build and her nose, surely no man would want her. ‘Tarah Woodblade don’t need no man.’ That was the mantra her grampa had taught her. And it was true. But what she needed and wanted were two different things.

Suddenly, Esmine reappeared, laying across Tarah and Djeri’s laps. The illusion placed her hands behind her head and her little face blinked up at Tarah. “I don’t like the idea of you living with someone that can’t see me.”

“I think we might already have a child,” Tarah joked, looking down at her.

Djeri’s eyes widened. “You what?”

Tarah’s eyes widened back at him and she laughed. “No. Not that. I mean Esmine. You can’t see her right now, but she is laying across our laps and . . . picking her nose.”

“Oh,” he said, placing a hand on his chest and chuckling in relief. “Turds, woman. You gave me a scare there.” He frowned. “Wait, why is she making her illusion pick its nose?”

“It’s what children do,” the elf girl said, then stuck her finger in her mouth.

Tarah winced and shoved the illusion off of her lap. “Hey!” Esmine said as the child plummeted to the ground once again.

“She’s been watching the Roo-Tan children and emulating their behavior,” Tarah explained.

Djeri grinned. “Emulating? I like it when those big words come out of your mouth.”

Tarah was raised by two rough frontier men, and it came out in her speech. But before her mother had died, she had given Tarah a love of reading. It wasn’t something she talked openly with others about, but sometimes those words she learned came out of her mouth unbidden.

Tarah bent and kissed the dwarf again, feeling a surge of happiness. This wouldn’t be so bad. Life with someone who loved and respected her and knew who she truly was. The future looked bright. Even having Esmine around was easier now that her antics were more childish and less painful.

“Ahem!” The child was back, standing behind them this time. Her arms were folded and a glare was on her face. “I was trying to talk. You wanted me to watch the boring meeting, didn’t you?”

Tarah pulled away from Djeri and looked back at the illusion. “Yes, Esmine. What’s going on?”

One result of the daily training Tarah had been doing with Tolynn had been learning new ways to use and expand Esmine’s abilities. Tarah had already known that the rogue horse could create and manipulate illusions anywhere within the range of her powers. Tolynn had pointed out that this meant the rogue horse had the ability to observe the goings on anywhere in that same range.

With a little testing, they had discovered that Esmine’s abilities went beyond monitoring and interacting with a single target. Somehow having all her considerable power tied to that one small staff had expanded her mental ability. The rogue horse could monitor multiple locations in that range at the same time.

Tarah had realized how badly she had been underutilizing Esmine’s abilities. Throughout the journey to Roo-Tan’lan, Tarah and her companions had spent their nights taking turns at watch, while only using Esmine in occasional forays against the enemy army. It was no wonder the tireless rogue horse had felt bored and isolated. They should have set her as a constant sentry, watching for encroachments into her territory and using her illusions to scare off predators or confuse army scouts and unwanted persons.

Tolynn had encouraged Tarah to put the rogue horse to work. This would keep her occupied and result in a spirit that was less troublesome. At the moment, Esmine was interacting with Tarah and Djeri, watching a group of Roo-Tan children at play, and observing Xedrion’s meeting.

“There’s a lot of pointless arguing going on between the houses,” Esmine reported. She shrugged. “Most of the treaty sounds pretty reasonable to me, but the Hoons and Fayns are arguing about water rights and the Tayls and Shuns are worried about losing grazing land for their cattle.”

Tarah repeated what she had said to Djeri and the dwarf asked. “What about Xedrion? What does he think?”

“He’s more worried about the armies and their ability to protect the villages if the Collective betrays them and invades.” The child looked up and tapped her lip as if thinking about it for a moment. “From what I can tell, he finds the treaty fairly satisfactory. He’s having the scribes make some adjustments to the maps to bring up at the treaty meeting.”

Once Tarah had told Djeri what Esmine had said, the dwarf replied, “It’s the treaty meeting itself that concerns me. One week from today is very little time to prepare. Where are they holding it?”

“At the proposed border. In the marshes at the edge of the swamps,” Tarah relayed.

It was old Roo custom that all important negotiations be made while ankle deep in the water. This was meant to guarantee the approval of the ancient gods of the swamps. It was a tradition that the Roo-Tan rarely stuck to anymore, but it appealed to Xedrion’s love of old Roo custom.

“In addition, each side is to bring twenty thousand troops. Wow, that is a lot of men,” Tarah said.

This was one of the points being argued in the meeting. Twenty thousand was half of Roo-Tan’s warriors, in fact. Many were debating that this was overkill, while others said that this was a number in their favor. The Roo-Tan were confident that every one of their warriors was worth three of their savage cousins.

“What about the gnome?” Djeri asked. “You know that turd sniffer’s somehow involved.”

“He hasn’t been mentioned,” Esmine said. “I think the meeting’s almost over now. They’re just going over the last page of the docu- . . . uh oh.”

“What?” Tarah said, concerned.

Tolynn’s thoughts interrupted, calling through the Jharro wristband Tarah wore. Tarah, the protector asks that you come and join us. The council has questions.

Yes, Tolynn, Tarah replied. She stood and Djeri stood with her.

“What is it?” The dwarf asked. “What did you find out?”

“Tolynn just told me to come to the meeting,” Tarah said. “What’s going on, Esmine?”

“They’re saying that the treaty will be arbitrated by Scholar Aloysius. They are calling him an old friend of the merpeople and an ally of the Mer-Dan collective.” She cocked her head. “Their reading the last page now. It lists all of his accomplishments.”

“Does it mention hunting down rogue horses? Starting wars among his own people?” Tarah growled.

Djeri’s shoulder’s slumped. “I guess that means Aloysius is going to be there?”

“He sure is,” Tarah replied. She walked to the ladder at the back of the tower and began climbing down. “They are openly admitting that he is with them now, but they say it like he’s there to be some kind of impartial third party to the meeting. Xedrion’s got to know it’s a trick.”

Djeri followed her down as quickly as he could. “Hey, Tarah. Wait.” She stopped at the entrance to the range and he grasped her arm. The dwarf spun her around and cupped her face with both hands. “Now remember. These people aren’t your enemies. It won’t help to yell at them. Especially the protector.”

“I know that,” she said and would have frowned if not for the earnest look in his undwarf-like green eyes. “But I don’t know how else to talk to a room full of self-important men. I’ve never been good at being subtle.”

“You don’t have to be subtle. You’re Tarah Woodblade; best guide in the known lands,” he said, giving her a confident smile. “Guide them.”

Tarah couldn’t let that go without kissing him again. She made it a long one too, ending it with a gentle, but promising, bite on his lip. He gave her a breathless look as she turned and headed for the palace doors.

The halls of the palace were busier than normal. Scribes and messengers scurried this way and that carrying scrolls and papers and quills. These types of individuals usually gave Tarah a wide berth, but today they were so distracted that she was bumped and jostled several times on her way.

When Tarah arrived at the main corridor, she was met by a loud commotion. Two heavily muscled Roo-Tan men were carrying a stretcher. Laying on it was Jhonate’s mother, Jhandra bin Tayl, looking very pregnant and very put out. Several women chattered madly as they kept pace with the men, some of them trying to fan her, others just patting her legs and talking. Walking right behind them was Beth and she wore a scowl.

“Leave off her, you fools! She’s been through this before and she doesn’t need you sucking all the air!” Beth saw Tarah and stepped away from the others briefly. “She’s finally gone in labor. Of course, Jhandra’s not about to say anything. Not in an important meeting.” She shook her head. “If I hadn’t noticed that her water had broke, she’d have been pushing out a baby in front of all the house heads!”

“Oh,” said Tarah. “Then she’ll be okay?”

“I’ve seen it. She’ll be fine,” Beth said. Where Tarah had the gift to see bits of the past, Beth could sometimes see the future. “But I’d better stick with her just in case. Some of these Roo-Tan doctors have the oddest beliefs when it comes to birthing.”

“How is the meeting going?” Tarah asked.

Beth sighed. “I’m not so sure about that. Xedrion seems pretty set on attending this treaty meeting, but I have an awful feeling about it. Nothing specific like a vision or anything or I’d have told them. But something ain’t right. You make sure and tell them if you know something about this gnome that’ll help. You’re not the kind of woman to let a man intimidate you.”

“Uh, thanks, Beth,” Tarah said. The woman jogged to catch up to the stretcher and Tarah let out a slow breath. Djeri said to stay calm. Beth said to be bold. Tarah wasn’t sure she could be both of those things at once.

Esmine popped into existence in front of her. “You might want to hurry. The protector just asked Tolynn what was taking you so long.”

“Alright. I’m not that far from the door,” Tarah said. She turned the corner and the guards waved her in.

The Protector’s Conference Room, was packed full of people. The protector had separated the attendees into clusters to discuss different sections of the treaty. Each of the small groups were arguing one point of the treaty or another and when Tarah entered, her ears were met with a near chaotic jumble of voices.

Xedrion himself was standing at the head of the center table in the room, looking down at a large map. Sir Edge and Sir Hilt were standing at the table near him along with Jhonate, his oldest sons, and his first wife, Herlda.

Xedrion glanced up as she entered and motioned her over. “Tarah Woodblade, did Tolynn tell you why I wanted to see you?”

“She knows, Protector,” Tolynn assured him. The elf was aware that Esmine was monitoring the meeting, but knew that Xedrion might not like the idea that he was being eavesdropped on.

Thank you, Tarah sent to her trainer through the wristband. She had almost told him the truth. There was one mistake averted. Tarah tried to take on a proper tone, thinking back to the many books she had read. “I understand that the Mer-Dan Collective claims that Aloysius will be at this treaty signing as an impartial arbiter?”

“That is how they are putting it,” he replied. “What do you think?”

“I would call it a lie, Protector,” Tarah said. “Aloysius plans to conquer the grove. That goal won’t be accomplished by impartial mediation.”

“So you have said before,” Xedrion said. “And I have no reason to doubt you. But I need proof of his intentions if I am going to act. Have you seen anything in the recent tracking you have done that would shed more light on his plans?”

The protector had sent her on several tracking runs over the last week, every time his scouts had reported signs of Mer-Dan incursion into their territory. Tarah shook her head slightly. “The soldiers that had left the tracks I found knew very little. Only that an army of powerful demons had come to bolster their ranks and that the leaders were meeting with some master tactician.”

“There were no thoughts of betrayal in their minds?” Xedrion asked.

“Not while they were making the tracks,” Tarah said. “But there wasn’t any sense that they hoped for peace, either. They expected a battle. Of all the tracks I have followed, only Elder Qelvyn and the messenger that came last night thought about the treaty at all.”

“That is a helpful insight,” said Xedrion, rubbing his chin. “Thank you, Miss Woodblade.”

“If I may, Protector, I have a question,” said Sir Edge, his eyes on Tarah.

“Go ahead,” Xedrion replied.

“Tarah, I have heard you describe the thoughts you found in the gnome warlord’s tracks several times and each time you used the same word,” Edge said. “You say he wants to ‘conquer’ the Jharro Grove.”

“Yes,” Tarah said. “Those were his thoughts.”

“Yes, but what was the meaning of that thought?” Edge pressed. “As a bonding wizard, I communicate with thoughts all the time. When a person writes a word on a page, the meaning of the word is open to interpretation. When a person thinks a word, the meaning is attached. When Aloysius thought about conquering the grove, what images or feelings were in his mind? Was he thinking of destroying the grove? Burning the trees?”

“No,” Tarah admitted. She had been keeping that particular aspect of the thought to herself up until now. She had felt that the Roo-Tan would be more likely to act if they thought he meant to destroy the grove.  “I didn’t necessarily sense that harming the grove was his goal. It was more that he wanted to possess it.”

Edge nodded. “Alright. Can you figure anything else out in the meaning? Was he thinking of going to battle and killing to get what he wanted?”

“No, but it was a short thought,” Tarah replied. “And I haven’t found any more of his tracks since. But I can tell you what I know about him from my prior experience. When Aloysius decides he wants something, he does what it takes to get it. He slaughtered Esmine to make his powerful sword more powerful. He left his homeland in flames just to root out a few enemies. If he wants the grove, he’ll do what he thinks is necessary to possess it. Aloysius doesn’t care about wrong or right.”

“Thank you, Tarah,” said Xedrion. “Please stay close by in case another question comes to mind.”

Tarah nodded and moved to stand by her trainer. Tolynn patted her on the arm and said through the wristband, You did well.

I feel like I accomplished nothing, Tarah replied mentally. He still seems as eager to go forward with this as before.

No, child, Tolynn replied. Xedrion is a complicated man and he has many aspects to consider when he makes a decision. I saw the look in his eyes when you were speaking. You made a difference.

“There’s something else about this that I don’t like,” Hilt said. He pointed down at the map. “Of all the places for this meeting to take place, why here?”

Xedrion had placed markers on the map to show where the proposed border would be between the two peoples. The meeting spot was located on this border line and the southernmost corner of the two territories at the bottom of a wide marsh valley.

“It’s the old wet-foot rule,” Xedrion said. “It has a wet base for us to stand in while the treaty is signed and the valley is large enough for both sides to bring the twenty thousand soldiers specified.”

“That’s what they said in the letter, yes. But there are other marshes along the border that are more centrally located if you wanted to stand in the water while signing the treaty,” Hilt pointed out. “Any of them would be easier for both sides to gather their people to.”

“It is closer to the merpeople stronghold, though,” said Herlda. “And since the ‘Dan don’t have large cities of their own, this could be where it’s easiest for them to gather.”

“Are we not fairly close to the Troll Swamps here?” Jhonate asked. “I have been thinking it a strange coincidence that we learn about the Troll Mother swallowing our people at the same time that the Mer-Dan Collective wants to meet.”

“She has a good point,” Edge said, looking closer at the map. “But is there any hint that the two are related? How close is this location to the areas of the disappearances?”

“They are at least half a day’s journey west of there,” Xedrion said. He shook his head. “This location is several miles from the Troll Swamp. I see no correlation.”

The Protector of the Grove raised his arms and called out to the room. “Defenders! Roo-Tan men and women. Gather around and hear my word!”

The room quieted as everyone halted their conversations and turned their attention to their leader.

“This choice has not come to me easily, but I have made my decision regarding this treaty. We shall attend the meeting!” There was a buzz around the room as the decision was met with general excitement. “Though I do not trust the leadership of this Mer-Dan collective, we have too long been at war with our cousins. If there is a way for us to live in peace with them, we must try. That being said, we do not have to sign this treaty as it currently stands. We have a limited time to work on this and I am depending on each of you to help create the revisions that I will bring with me to the meeting.”

Once the furor had died down and the people got to work, Xedrion motioned the rest of them closer. “I do not intend to go into this meeting unprepared. Qurl and Hubrin, I want you two in charge of scouting this area. I want to know all possible locations for ambush. And be careful. The Mer-Dan will have their own men there as well. Tarah Woodblade, I would like you and your friends to go with them. I want you telling me every thought our enemy is having leading up to this meet.”

“Yes sir,” Tarah said. At least she would be doing something. She was determined to find out exactly what Aloysius was up to before this meeting happened.

Xedrion continued, “Hilt, you and I will focus on attack strategies in case things go bad. There is a very good chance they will and we may want to go on the offensive. Sir Edge and Jhonate, I am giving you perhaps the most important assignment of all. I need to formulate plans for retreat. Take every sort of treachery into account. If we get in a situation where we cannot win, I’m depending on you to get us out.”

Chapter Twenty Two

Fist and Maryanne waited at the top of the cliff while Rufus went back down to collect the others. The gnome warrior stood at the edge and watched while the rogue horse descended, using his large, but deft fingers and clawed rear feet to help him keep a firm hold on the rocky wall. Qenzic and Locksher were waiting at the bottom, looking back up at Rufus, while Lyramoor had grown impatient and started climbing on his own.

“Ooh, they look a little green in the face,” Maryanne said, peering down at them.

Fist joined her at the edge. “How can you tell from up here? They look so small.”

Fist felt a slight tug on his hair as Squirrel peered over and looked down from the top of his head. I see them. Green, he agreed.

“They were looking ill while we were climbing,” she said. “Maybe this wasn’t the best route for us to take. Qenzic will pull through, but I don’t know if the wizard will be able to take it.”

“Wizard Locksher will be fine,” Fist assured her. “He can use air magic to hold on tight to Rufus.”

“Yeah, but this is just the first one. There are worse climbs to come,” Maryanne reminded him. “I think he has a fear of heights.”

Their current route to the black lake was a treacherous one, worse than the journey he and Maryanne had taken to get to the Thunder People. The multiple cliffs and unstable slopes in their way were obstacles that Fist would have chosen to avoid if possible. Unfortunately, there was no better option. The regular trails were patrolled by infested creatures.

“I am sure that Wizard Locksher can endure it,” Fist said, waving down at the two men. The wizard waved weakly back. “When he has a question in his mind, he forgets little things like fears.”

Maryanne scooted closer to him and put her arm around his waist. “You know, it’s quite a bit warmer now than the last time we were up here.”

On the journey from the black lake to the Thunder People territory, the wind had been stiff and cold. Right now the wind was deceptively warm. His arms were still wet from the water that had been dripping down the cliff face as Rufus had carried them. That concerned him because he could see dark clouds on the horizon.

Rufus reached the bottom and eagerly loaded the two men on his back. Fist waved down at them and would have called out encouragingly, but sound echoed oddly in the mountains. He could start an avalanche somewhere or worse, draw the ears of the infested dead.

He reached around Maryanne and pulled her closer to him, then pointed out the encroaching clouds. “Look. It will not be warm long. A big storm is coming. That could be bad if we are not back before it hits us.”

“Well, I won’t mind as long as you’re holding me close like this,” Maryanne teased.

Fist chuckled embarrassedly, but did not let go. The thing that had started between them while hunting down the ogres that had killed Puj had grown. At first Fist hadn’t known how to take the gnome’s constant flirting. It was suggestive, but not aggressive like ogre females. Once he had realized that she was expressing true interest and not just teasing him Fist had given the idea some real thought.

Maryanne was different from the women that he had been attracted to in the past. She was almost as tall as he was, but the gnome was thin and athletic instead of buxom and brawny like the ogre women. She also wasn’t as cerebral as the women of the other races that had fascinated him. She laughed at coarse jokes and tended to use improper grammar. In a way, she was somewhere in the middle between the things that had attracted him to women in his old life and the things that attracted him in his new one. He found that suited him quite well.

He looked at her narrow face. The wind ruffled her red hair causing the drooping top of one ear to protrude. He thought she looked beautiful. She turned her head and smiled up at him. “What?”

He felt an impulse to kiss her. She had been hinting that she wanted him to for several days now, but for some reason he kept holding back. At the moment he couldn’t think why. He leaned towards her, his lips parting just as Rufus’s hairy hand gripped the top of the cliff’s edge.

“Here!” said the rogue horse as he pulled himself up the rest of the way, the two humans on his back pale, but perfectly safe. “I not drop,” Rufus said proudly.

“No,” Locksher said weakly, releasing the many elemental spells that had tied him to the rogue horse. He slid off of Rufus’ back and stumbled a few steps. “You did quite well, thank you.”

“How are you feeling, Master?” Fist asked in concern, letting his arm drop away from Maryanne’s shoulder.

“Onwards and upwards,” Locksher replied. His hand shook visibly as he reached up to wipe the sweat from his brow. The wizard gestured back over his shoulder. “Do you see that storm system moving in? It is going to drop a great deal of snow on this mountain.”

“Fist was just saying that,” Maryanne said. “It could get a bit hairy for us if we get stuck in it, but snow’s a good thing, right? It’ll keep the evil from escaping and all?”

“It should be helpful for now,” Locksher agreed. “But I’m thinking that this may very well be the last big storm of the winter. It may only give us a few more days at most.”

“Then why has the Mage School been waiting?” Qenzic grumbled. “They should be on the way here now.”

“We have had this conversation before,” the wizard replied evenly. “And the answer has not changed. The High Council will not send out wizards in force until they know how many to send. And they will not know that until I tell them what they’re up against.”

“Well, you know what I think?” Lyramoor said as he hauled himself onto the ledge. As agile as the elf was, he was nowhere near as fast a climber as Rufus, a fact that, from the redness of his face, evidently frustrated him. “Someone from the academy oughta go down to the Mage School with their sword and start pokin’ wizards in the arses until they get moving!”

Fist felt that he should speak up. “The Mage School is ready to help. They are just trying to make sure that the right decision is made.”

“That’s not what Sarine says,” Maryanne replied. “She and Sherl and Beehn are pushing for the school to move. But Valtrek and the rest are dragging their heels.”

“Yes, don’t defend them. They are abominably slow to act,” Locksher said. “I had hoped this would change with the new council members, but alas this new group is just as stubborn.” The wizard sighed. “Our grumbling about it won’t do anything to move them along. Let’s get to that lake so that I can take my measurements.”

The problem stemmed from the fact that their journey to the black lake had been delayed multiple times. Locksher had wanted to head out the day after their arrival in Thunder People territory. Unfortunately the evil in the mountains had decided to increase the rate of its attacks. In the past, the dead had come to the territory once every three days. Now they came every day and in such numbers that the ogres needed the help of Fist’s tribe to fend them off.

The dead didn’t come at night because the worms still relied on the senses of the bodies they inhabited to direct them, but each morning as the sun cleared the horizon, on they came. Hundreds of mindless creatures whose only goal was to kill or infect the living. It was evident that something had stirred the evil up and Fist was fairly sure that his battle on the shores of the lake was the culprit.

The battles were long and brutal. The ogres had done this enough that they had become effective at disabling the enemy. However, they didn’t fight as a unit. The ogres would simply charge at the oncoming horde and bash away with their clubs and rocks until the enemy retreated.

Fist and Locksher sent in lightning attacks to help, but they had to be careful not to strike ogres as well. They also soon learned that electricity was only a temporary fix to the problem. When the worms infesting a body were killed, the body fell useless. But the evil seemed to understand this and was quick to send one of its dead comrades to leave more larvae on the body. Within minutes, the body reanimated again.

After the first disastrous day when four ogres were killed and five more had to be shocked clean, it was evident that the Thunder People needed more than just magical help. The academy graduates began teaching the ogres to build fortifications. It wasn’t too difficult. The ex-Stone People already knew how to build rock walls. They just needed some direction on where to put them to best help.

Lyramoor had scouted the lay of the land and knew which paths the evil used to enter the territory. They built barricades and set up choke points. They built burn piles in closer to these locations so that the dead could be disposed of more efficiently.

The next day’s battle went much smoother. The ogres kept the dead from breaking past the barricades and, with the help of Fist’s tribe, destroyed the evil army quickly. The only people that needed to be shocked were some of the ogres working the burn piles that grew too careless handling the bodies.

The following day didn’t go as well. The dead swarmed the barricade before the ogres were ready. By the time the Thunder People retook their positions, three more ogres had died. Adjustments were made. The ogre spotters tended to get distracted or fall asleep, so Lyramoor began taking it upon himself to scout out the enemy forces each morning.

Each morning, the dead came and each day, the journey to the lake was delayed once more. The enemy made adjustments of their own. One morning large thick-skinned spiders charged and knocked the barricades over. Another morning, the dead took a different route, climbing up a steep incline to enter the territory from an unguarded area. Locksher began to wonder just how smart the evil was.

Luckily, Crag and Charz stepped up. Crag knew how to keep the ogres motivated. He was at the front of the fight each morning and was up boasting of the people’s prowess every night. Charz was in his element. The rock giant stayed at the front lines and took on any of the more dangerous beasts that entered the fray. Every once in a while, he was even able to drag Mog out of the big cave to help. Charz had befriended the netherbeast and even though Mog was lazy, his size and body dissolving saliva made him helpful to the cause.

Fist grew worried about where the evil had gotten so many bodies. Every day the ogres destroyed hordes of dead, yet every day the evil supplied more. In the beginning, the enemy was limited to goblinoid and trolls and the occasional ogre or giant. Lately, they were seeing more humans and dwarves amongst the regular fodder.

Another week went by and with the Mage School refusing to budge, Locksher had decided that the journey couldn’t be delayed another day. They had left the defense of the territory in the hands of Charz and Crag and headed out.

The dark mass of oncoming clouds was proceeded by a chill wind that buffeted the party as they climbed up and down a series of steep trails and short cliffs. Finally, they arrived at the last obstacle. It was the tallest cliff and more of a sheer climb than the first one. There were places where the cliff face bulged outward, making Rufus’ task all the more difficult.

“I think we should risk the long way around this time,” Lyramoor said, looking up at the foreboding lip of the rock ledge high above.

Rufus ran to the edge of the shelf and sniffed. “Ooh! Stinks!” There are dead down there, he told Fist

“Sorry, we can’t,” Fist said. “Rufus smells enemies on the trails. If we are spotted, the evil will know where we are.”

“We’re not backing down,” Locksher assured him, though his face still looked as pale as before.

The rogue horse took Fist and Maryanne up first as he had the first time. There were frightening moments where Rufus was climbing the rock face and Fist was hanging with his arms clenched around the rogue horse’s neck and Maryanne’s arms wrapped around Fist’s waist. Water dripped all around them, but the wind was quickly turning the drips to icicles. They reached the top safely, but on the way back down, Rufus took twice as long.

“It icy,” he warned the men when he reached the bottom.

The men shuddered. Lyramoor stepped back, his eyes scanning the cliff for a better route than the rogue horse had taken. The elf didn’t like the thought of trusting his life in the hands of another, even as adept a climber as Rufus, but this cliff was intimidating.

Come on, Rufus, Fist said through the bond. They’re scared. Encourage them.

Okay, Rufus replied hesitantly. Talking wasn’t his strong suit.

“Ooh! Uh. Ooh! You not die,” the rogue horse promised in his huffing staccato voice. The men gave each other wary looks. Lyramoor approached the cliff, but Rufus patted the elf’s back, his large hand covering him from shoulders to buttocks. “You ride this time.”

“Worry not,” Locksher assured the others, forcing a smile. “As before, I will use air to lash us to the beast quite securely.”

“Yeah, but what if he slips?” Lyramoor asked.

“That won’t happen,” Qenzic said. He smacked Rufus’s hairy arm. “You’ve never fallen before, have you buddy?”

“Ooh-ooh, yes. Lots of times,” the rogue horse said, smiling broadly. He noticed what little confidence there was slide off of their faces and added, “Uh, but not today.”

Lyramoor mounted up first, grasping Rufus’ neck and the others sat behind him. There was plenty of room on the rogue horse’s broad back for their three slender frames, but his width made the seating a bit uncomfortable. Locksher tied them together tightly with spells and up Rufus climbed.

In the short time they had spent talking, the chill oncoming wind had frozen the cliff face solid. Rufus made his way carefully, adapting to the way the weight of his passengers pulled on his frame. He chipped away at chunks of ice with his thick fingernails when needed and kept steady all up to the point where the cliff face bulged and Rufus’ legs slipped from the rock. He was hanging by his two hands.

The men gasped, but Rufus was unperturbed. He had climbed this way many times over the centuries and knew what he was doing. Then the rock his right hand was gripping pulled away from the cliff face and he dangled there for a moment, rotating slightly, the weight of the enormous rogue horse and his three passengers dependent on a single fissure in the rock.

“Piss and pomegranates!” Lyramoor swore.

Fist and Maryanne could not see them from their vantage point, but they heard the exclamation. Fist felt Rufus’ heart rate increase through the bond. Are you alright?

Okay, Rufus assured him. With some effort, he was able to reach back up and find a better grip. Two minutes later he had reached the top.

“Piss and pomegranates?” Maryanne asked with amusement as the shaken riders slid down from the rogue horse’s back.

Lyramoor shot her a glare. “I was raised by dwarf smugglers. I’ve heard a lot worse.”

Locksher stumbled and Fist reached out to steady him. “Master Locksher are you-?”

“I am fine,” the wizard said in a shaky voice. “I kept my eyes closed the entire time. I have absolutely no idea what happened and I don’t want to know, alright?” He frowned and inhaled through his nose deeply. “Do you smell that?”

“Yes,” said Fist. He hadn’t smelled it when he first arrived at the top, but the wind had whipped around, carrying it over to them. He pointed to the north. “The lake is just over there.”

They were standing on the flat top of a wide mountain ridge that was covered with a frozen mass of ice and snow. In the center of it was a tall rock mound with a gaping cave in its side. On the far end was a sheer drop off into a deep canyon. The lake was at the bottom.

Lyramoor ran off to check out the cave while the rest of the party walked north towards the edge. Fist could see a mist rising from the canyon below and the smell worsened as they approached. Above the wind he could hear the faint bussing of flies. When they neared the edge, he motioned them down on all fours and had them peek down upon the lake below.

“Holy mother of mud,” said Maryanne. “It’s bigger.”

Much much bigger, thought Rufus, his large head peering down next to Fist’s.

Fist’s jaw hung open. It was bigger alright. The lake had surged past the previous shoreline and now rose halfway up the bank. The path to the side canyon that he and Maryanne had walked down was now submerged in black sludge. Fist could just see the flat top of the large boulder he had stood upon when facing the dead horde. It looked like a small square island in the black lake of worms.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Locksher said, his brows raised so high Fist thought it should give the man a cramp. “I mean, you described it to me, but . . .”

“This isn’t like it was when we were there,” Maryanne said. “The thing must’ve . . . I dunno, doubled in volume for the line to rise that high up the slope.”

“Are you sure?” Locksher said. “In just two weeks?”

Lyramoor trotted up to join them. “Hey, that cave back there is empty. I don’t know what was living in it, but-but . . . That’s a lot of worms.”

“That’s not all,” Fist said, pointing at the slope. There were more dead scattered about than before, mostly large shapes, perhaps giants and ogres, but other things as well. It was hard to make out from this height. They were laying all about the banks in jumbled heaps. But the thing that drew his attention most was about half way up the slope.

There, seemingly growing out of the side of the cliff was a square building with a sloping roof. A chimney rose from one corner of it and a large stone covered the entrance. Smoke wafted up from the chimney.

“That building was not there before,” Fist said.

Nope, Squirrel agreed from his perch atop Fist’s head.

“Nope,” said Rufus.

“You think someone built that in two weeks?” Maryanne asked. “Carved it out of the cliff or something?”

“No. That was created with earth magic,” said Locksher. “Look at it with your mage sight.”

Fist did so and saw that the entire building glowed black as if imbued with earth. “That wasn’t there before,” he repeated.

“Hey, Fist,” said Maryanne. “Look at the sludge. It’s moving.”

The gnome was right. Two weeks ago, the surface of the lake had been still like the skin on the top of a pudding. Now it rippled and surged as if large shapes were swimming around within its depths.

“Ooh-ooh. Look,” Rufus said, pointing down with one long shaggy arm.

One of those large shapes reached the shoreline and crawled onto the slope. It stood on two legs, taking on a vaguely humanoid shape as it lumbered up the slope. Fist couldn’t tell what it was. From this distance it looked to be made of the black sludge. It walked up to the stone door of the square building. The stone rolled to the side and it walked inside. The door shut behind it.

“What the hell was that?” Maryanne asked.

“Just a minute . . .” said Qenzic.

“I think we have seen enough,” Fist said, pushing back from the edge. “Tell the academy and the Mage School to just send everybody.”

“Wait. I-I’ve seen this place before,” Qenzic said, his brow knit in realization. “I mean, I’ve been here.”

“You’ve been way up here?” Lyramoor said in disbelief. “How’d that happen?”

“No. Not where we’re laying. Down there,” Qenzic replied. “I’ve been at the bottom of this thing. There wasn’t a lake there then. None of that black stuff, but I remember these cliffs. This canyon. There were trees down there back then. It was at the beginning of the war, back when we didn’t know what was going on with Ewzad Vriil or the moonrat mother. I was with Faldon and his advanced class. We had a group of Dremald soldiers with us and fought a huge battle against a goblinoid army down there. That was the first time I saw a moonrat with orange eyes.”

“Just a moment,” said Locksher. “Did you say a moonrat with orange eyes?”

“Yeah,” Qenzic said. “It was hiding under a rock down there, I think that big one you can just see the top of. We had the thing cornered and we started hearing the witch’s voice in our heads. Jhonate had to knock some sense into Poz and Jobar, and finally Faldon had to chop its head off.”

“Right down there?” Locksher said, pointing, his eyebrows raised. “What did you do with the body?”

“I-I don’t remember. It’s been a long time,” he said, scratching his head. “We threw it on top of the burn piles I’m pretty sure. Faldon was always very particular about that. Why. Do you think it’s important or something?” the man asked.

Locksher blinked back at him. “Well, it’s hard to say. It could be.” The wizard scooted back from the edge and sat up. “This is all too strange and with these new developments . . . Fist, I need your help with something.”

“What is it?” Fist said, pushing himself back.

Locksher stood and brushed the snow off of his robes. “Something reckless I suppose,” he said with a shrug. “But if approached correctly, with the right mental focus it should be perfectly safe. Well, not perfectly, but safe enough.”

“I don’t like the sound of this,” Maryanne said, moving to stand beside them. “What is this reckless thing that you want Fist to do?”

Locksher shook his head. “You misunderstand. What I’m asking Fist to do isn’t reckless at all. It shouldn’t endanger anyone but me.”

“Yeah. I don’t like that either,” Maryanne said, putting her hands on her hips.

“What is it exactly that you plan to do?” Fist asked.

Locksher looked around. “Lyramoor, did you say that cave was empty?”

The scarred elf nodded slowly. “Yeah. It doesn’t smell all that good in there, but it’s vacant.”

“Good. Let’s do this over there, shall we?” the wizard said and began walking to the large rock mound.

Fist felt a tightness growing in his chest as he followed his master. Locksher did reckless experiments with magic all the time, but this was the first time that he had heard the wizard admit it beforehand. For him to do so meant that it was very dangerous indeed.

“You planning some sort of attack?” Maryanne asked the wizard.

“Of sorts,” Locksher said. “I would call it more of a fact finding mission.”

“What kind of facts are you gonna find in a cave that far from the edge?” she asked incredulously. “You can’t even see the lake from there.”

As Fist drew nearer to the cave he realized that it wasn’t naturally formed as he had thought from the cursory first glance he had given it. It had been dug into the rock by some large beast. As the wind and water had eroded the mound it had dug into, whatever lived there had piled boulders and rocks up all around it to protect it.

The interior wasn’t all that large. Their whole party couldn’t have fit inside. Lyramoor had been right about the smell. It was organic and slightly sour, like it had been left by the sweat of the beast that had used the place. Bones and scraps of wood and tufts of long white hair were scattered all around the place.

Locksher walked in, kicked a few bones aside, and nodded his head. “This will do nicely.”

“For what!” Maryanne snapped. “We keep asking and you keep delaying the answer which tells me that we aren’t going to like this plan of yours one bit!”

“Well, it’s not the sort of thing that one likes,” Locksher replied. “I need to do some . . . mental reconnaissance.”

Lyramoor snorted.

“That sounds like spirit magic to me,” Fist said. Reconnaissance wasn’t one of his words of the day, but he had heard it somewhere before. “You’re not going to leave your body are you? That’s how Ewzad Vrill got himself killed.”

“No,” said Locksher. “Or at least not in that sort of way. I need to get inside the mind of this evil and sort out what it’s about. Don’t worry. It should be fine. I saw Jhonate do it once and she came out relatively unharmed from the experience.”

“That is crazy,” Maryanne said.

“I know what he’s talking about,” Fist said. “Justan told me about it. She went into the mother of the moonrat’s mind. By holding an orange moonrat eye.” The ogre blinked. “How are you planning to do this?”

“Frankly, Fist,” Locksher said, removing a slender box from inside his robes. He opened it to reveal a shriveled finger. It moved and Fist realized that there were larvae inside it. “I am going to let myself be infested.”

Chapter Twenty Three

Lyramoor laughed. “The lake’s right over there. Why don’t you just run off the edge and jump right in?”

“That’s not funny,” said Maryanne, frowning.

“Come on, he’s not serious,” said the elf.

“Yes he is,” said Fist, frowning as deeply as the gnome. He folded his arms. “Master, this is a very bad idea. Rufus went through it. Believe me, it is not a fun experience.”

“Ooh! Bad!” the rogue horse agreed. “Hurts!”

“Oh, I imagine it won’t be pleasant,” Locksher said, looking down at the slightly moving finger in the box. “I don’t undertake this without some trepidation and believe me, I definitely do not look forward to the experience. However, I do think that this is our best option to discover what is going on down there.”

Maryanne walked over and placed a hand on Lyramoor’s shoulder. “Lyramoor could head down to that building. Knock on the door,” she suggested. “If it’s smart enough to build a house like that, it’s smart enough for him to get it to talk.”

Yes! Squirrel agreed. I will go too. Like Deathclaw.

The elf snorted. “As appealing as that idea sounds, I’m not stupid. I’d be swarmed by those dead things.”

“Rufus would run you down there. I’d provide cover fire. Fist and the wizard could throw in some lightning strikes to clear a path.” Maryanne jabbed him with a stiff finger. “It’s the least you could do after the way you nearly ruined everything by killing that ogre.”

“I didn’t nearly ruin everything!” Lyramoor snapped.

“No one is going down there,” Fist said firmly. “We don’t know who or what is in there.”

The elf glowered at the gnome. “Always exaggerating . . .”

“As I was saying,” Locksher said calmly gesturing with the box. “This is the best option available to us. Fist is correct. The wizard or creature or whatever it is that’s living in that building could very well be the source of this evil, which would mean it has vast bewitching magic. It could very well overpower any of us if we approached it.”

“So you want to try and enter its mind?” Maryanne said in disbelief. “If this thing is that strong, it could crush you like . . . one of those maggots.”

He raised a calming hand. “I am not so unformidable as that. I have a well-trained mind and have done hours of research on the subject. Besides, Fist will be at my side ready to electrify me if things get out of hand.”

“I can see you’re determined to do this,” Fist said, his concern growing. “But don’t do it here where we’re so close to the source of the evil. Why not wait until we are back at the Thunder People camp?” He hoped that the ride back would give him some time to think up a better plan.

“Being closer to the source might be better in this case. Also,” the wizard pointed back over Fist’s shoulder. “I don’t know that we would make it back before that storm hits.”

Fist turned around. While he had been focused on the black lake, the storm clouds had barreled in. The Thunder people territory was hidden from view by sheets of heavy falling snow. “I think this makes it an even worse idea.”

“Nonsense,” said the wizard.

“Aah! Locksher!” Maryanne exclaimed.

Fist turned around to see that the wizard had taken the infested finger out of the box and was holding it in his hand. Larvae were crawling out of the open stump, their little glowing eyes looking around. They surged towards his flesh. Fist reached out, his hand crackling with electricity.

“Wait!” Locksher said, holding his arm out of the way and wincing as they started to burrow into his skin. “I am going to put myself into a meditative trance. This should keep me from going into a rage and attacking you all. Fist, you stay here and watch me. I am bound to struggle a bit from time to time, but be patient with that. Do not shock me unless I attempt any violent behavior.”

Fist grimaced as the larvae disappeared, leaving little holes in the wizard’s flesh. “But Master, sometimes when I shock the ogres, there’s damage.”

The first ogres he had saved had partial numbness in their extremities. He had gotten better at it as time went on, and most of the time now it was okay. But the last one he shocked still had three paralyzed fingers on one hand.

“You’ve had practice since then.” Locksher grunted and sat down in the rear of the cave, crossing his legs and closing his eyes. “Now stop bothering me. These larvae work quickly.”

The wizard was already starting to sweat. Fist had come to know the signs well. The larvae didn’t take over the living as fast as they did the dead, but they caused havoc right away. Sweats and irritability, followed by fever and rage. Fist just hoped that the wizard didn’t start casting spells at them or anything. He started preparing defensive magic just in case.

Locksher trembled a bit, then went still. He was fully in his trance now. The wizard’s lips began to move and he spoke in a monotone voice. “I have cleared my mind of emotion. This will give me more time to work before the larvae’s magic take me over completely. I am now preparing to enter the mind of the enemy. I have a . . .” His voice trailed off and his jaw went slack.

“I guess we have no choice now.” Fist sat down in front of the wizard. “The rest of you should watch the lake and see if you notice anything else helpful.”

I’ll watch! Squirrel volunteered and scampered away.

“Great,” Lyramoor grumbled and wandered after Squirrel, heading to the edge. “And it’s started to snow.”

Qenzic sighed at the fat flakes that were just starting to fall just outside the mouth of the cave. “I suppose I’ll go with him.”

Rufus yawned and stretched out on his back just in front of the cave. I like snow. He placed his large hands behind his oversized head and opened his mouth wide, sticking out his tongue in hope that flakes would fall in.

Maryanne stood there, leaning against the wall of the cave for a few minutes, watching the sweating brow of the wizard. “I should just walk over and kick him in the head right now while he can’t defend himself.”

“That’s not a good idea,” Fist said. “You might disrupt his concentration.”

“Oh you.” She walked over to Fist and surprised him by plopping down into his lap. She put her long arms around his shoulders and gave him a vexed look. “You’re a frustrating man you know? So straight forward and open about everything. Even worse, you expect everyone else to be the same way. Sometimes I just want to-!”

Fist leaned in and kissed her. The gnome was startled at first, but soon leaned into him, letting out a soft moan. Her lips were so different than the lips of an ogress, thinner and softer. Then her hands gripped the back of his head and pulled him in tight and he found out that she was just as ferocious as any ogre female. Fist wasn’t sure how long the kiss lasted, but when she pulled back they were both breathing heavy.

She let out a throaty giggle. “Thank goodness you did that when you did, because I was only going to wait one more day before I grabbed you and did it myself.”

He smiled back at her. “Want me to do it again?”

Maryanne cocked her head and held up one finger. “Just once, because we’re supposed to be watching a wizard.”

Fist looked around her at Locksher, who was still sitting calmly, sweating, but otherwise seeming perfectly uninfested. “Okay,” he said and pulled her in again.

Locksher stood in a mental representation of his mind. It looked like his rooms back in the Mage School, but from before Vannya had reorganized it. Books and items were piled up on the floor, everything in its logical space. He nodded satisfactorily for a moment then cocked his head. It did look a dreadful mess.

He waved his arm and several tall bookshelves appeared. The piles left the floor and everything was much more orderly. He grudgingly admitted, not for the first time, that the mage had been right after all. This was better.

He lifted a scroll in his hands, going over Jhonate’s instructions in how to go into battle against invasive spirit magic. It had taken a great deal of effort to get her to sit down with him long enough to get this information down. There was a checkmark beside, ‘Make a mental representation of yourself’. The next item on the list was. ‘Armor yourself properly before going into battle. By strengthening your mental representation, you strengthen your mind.’

He shrugged. As was to be expected from a warrior woman. Nevertheless, the thought had its merits. His traveler’s robes were replaced by a different set, heavily runed with protective runes and wards of spirit magic nature. They were the robes of the wizard that had trained him, Master Tallow. He didn’t know what all the runes meant, but he had studied them all so closely that he felt he knew them by heart. Wearing these robes made him feel protected. Powerful even.

Next on the list was, ‘Prepare yourself a weapon. You will need it to counter the spiritual attacks of the enemy.’ Locksher had given this one some thought previously. He wasn’t much of a weapons man, but he liked the function and simplicity of the Jharro staff that Jhonate carried. One appeared in his hand. Not quite as long as hers, but sturdy. The perfect height for a walking staff.

He looked at the list again. There were six or seven other items but they seemed to be a bit tedious and he really didn’t have time for the extra preparations. He could already smell the rot invading his space. He stuffed the scroll back into his robes and sought out the source of the smell.

He looked through the aisles of his bookshelves, then moved to the back of his rooms where his desk stood. It was definitely around here somewhere. As Master Tallow would have said, the smell was strong enough to curl his nose hairs. This would be his access point to the mind of the evil.

He opened a few of the small drawers wondering where the larvae’s invasion had begun. The smell grew stronger and he scratched his head until he understood. Of course it would have to begin there. He got down on his knees and reached under his desk, moving a few sacks out of the way.

Locksher nearly gagged on the stench as he grasped the small chest that rested against the wall and pulled it toward him. The chest was made of pine and bound with brass. The name plate on the lid read, ‘Blatche’.

He reached into the pocket of his robes and gripped the key that appeared there. While he watched, the light wood of the chest darkened. The brass corroded. Blackness grew from the seams in the wood. It spread across the floor and up the desk, tarnishing and aging everything it touched.

Locksher took a deep breath and let it out slowly. All things bad came from the family name. He pushed the key into the lock and turned it. The lid sprang open.

There were skulls inside. Black skulls, and they multiplied, spilling into the room. Wherever the skulls landed the blackness spread. The box rotted quickly away and now there was a deep hole where it had been.

Locksher bit his lip. There was no backing down now. He dove into the hole, descending into blackness, the mind of the enemy

He couldn’t see anything at first. Locksher looked behind him and saw the small window of light that was the way back to his mind. A silvery strand stretched from the window and was anchored somewhere along his spine.

This gave him confidence. It was as Jhonate had described. He looked around and as his eyes adjusted, he saw many more pinpricks of light. Those must be the minds of the living infested. He found it alarming just how many there were. As he watched, he saw a couple of them blink out.

He didn’t have time to dawdle. Locksher flexed his mind and the runes on his robe glowed a bright white. His staff glowed more of a gray, but it helped to illuminate his surroundings.

He came to sense that he was inside a large sphere. The specks of light were at the outer edge of the sphere. In the center was an amorphous mass of blackness, even darker than the black surrounding him. It glinted wetly in the light of his staff. Tiny black strands shot out from it into the darkness. He could barely make them out. Thousands and thousands of them, the size of strings. Perhaps millions. He came to realize that each of these strands was connected to an individual larva.

Jhonate had told him that touching these strands might alert the mind he was invading, but Locksher knew right away that avoiding them would be impossible, especially if he was to approach close enough to the center mass to learn anything. So he chose to trust in the spirit magic runes on his robes. Though he didn’t know what each one meant, Master Tallow had told him that they protected him from inquiring minds. He hoped that this would continue to be the case.

Locksher willed himself towards the center, thinking as loud as he could, I’m not here. You don’t see me.

The black strands parted in his wake, enveloping him, surrounding him, but not directly touching him. His choice of armor seemed to be working well. He reached the center mass which was glistening despite the multitude of tendrils that shot from it, and reminded himself what Jhonate had said. She had taken her staff and plunged it into the mass, thinking of the staff as a direct link back to her conscious. She had then absorbed the memories within. Doing so had alerted the moonrat mother of her presence though, so he had to be more careful.

Locksher focused his mind on the gray staff in his hands, willing it to be unobtrusive. Don’t let on you’re here. You’re just one of the tendrils doing its job. He willed the end of it to turn black just in case that helped. Then he pushed it slowly into the mass.

Fist discovered that Maryanne really liked to kiss. ‘One more’ kept turning into another ‘one more’. He was enjoying himself, too, but he worried that he was being irresponsible. After all, it was hard to keep an eye on the wizard with her face in the way.

He placed a finger up between their lips. “I’m sorry, but we must stop for now.”

Finally, said both Squirrel and Rufus through the bond. The rogue horse, still laying on the ground just outside the cave, sighed for emphasis.

Maryanne gave him a playful scowl and bit his finger before climbing out of his lap. “For now, big guy. We’ll revisit this subject at a later date.”

Fist smiled and watched her walk to the cave entrance. The heavy flakes were falling faster now. Rufus was covered in a thick dusting, all but for his lolling tongue and his open mouth, which caught and dissolved every errant flake within their reach. Maryanne sat on the rogue horse’s belly and the great beast let out a chuckle.

“Oh, don’t laugh. You know he liked it,” she said.

Fist turned his eyes back to the wizard just in time to see his body jerk. His facial expression didn’t change, but his breathing rate increased.

“Locksher?” Fist said softly and touched the wizard’s forehead. It was hot. Fist reached out with his healing magic and saw the infestation. He swallowed. There were larvae throughout the man’s bloodstream as well as tiny eggs. It had grown so quickly, from just a few tiny larvae.

He wondered if it would help to kill some of the larvae. Just a few of them, one-by-one just to ease the burden. But he didn’t dare do it just in case he could accidentally alert the evil to what was going on.

“How is he?” Maryanne asked.

“Not good. The infestation is as expected. But I should be able to bring him back as long as they don’t kill him.” The larvae didn’t seem to kill the ogres they infested, but Locksher was a much frailer human. His body might not be able to handle the stress of a full infestation. He kept monitoring the wizard with his magic, preparing to act if the wizard’s body started to shut down.

Uh oh, the house is opening, Squirrel said and sent Fist a quick image of the strange building below and the rock in front of the door rolling to the side.

“Maryanne, Squirrel says something is going on down below,” Fist announced.

“I’ll check it out,” the gnome said, trotting off into the snow.

Locksher’s mind was nearly overcome by the sheer power of the thing. Its presence was massive and all consuming. Its thoughts were low and instinctual, but it had the capacity to process immense amounts of information at once. Each of those black strands carried commands, most of which were of a basic nature. Go. Attack. Stop. As large as it was, Locksher saw that it wasn’t whole. It was half of a mind, all power and little substance.

This didn’t make sense to him. How did it direct the armies of dead with thought processes so weak? If this was all there was too it, the dead would be stumbling around and walking off cliffs, not a threat to anybody.

As for memories, it had very few for Locksher to absorb. It was as if the thing was a newborn. Its thoughts seemed to have begun about six months ago, just at the end of the war. Locksher found that strange and dug deeper, going back to that beginning and pushing.

He found it and began to understand. He knew what this was. Fascinated, he followed its memories back to the present and noticed something he hadn’t before. A single dark strand protruded from the back of the mass, much thicker than any of the others’ as thick as his arm. This strand had a slight red tint to it, making it the color of dead blood.

Locksher realized that this strand did not originate from the mass, but was attached to it from the far end of the sphere. Another mind had penetrated the mass. A mind that was dark and powerful. He stretched his thoughts into the black mass, finding the joining spot where the red one entered. Then he saw it, a black rune.

The Dark Prophet was involved. Everything fell into place and Locksher knew that he needed to leave right away. He pulled his gray staff from the mass and saw that it wasn’t gray anymore. The blackness had moved up the staff and into his hands. His arms were black from the elbow down.

Fear jolted through him and he flexed his mind, willing the black back down his arms and out of the staff. It remained gray when he was finished, though perhaps a little darker than before. He grasped the silvery cord that linked him to his mind and began soaring back towards that tiny window of light. It looked much smaller than it had when he came in this place.

He was half way there when he was jerked to a halt. He looked down and saw a dark red tendril wrapped around his leg. The thing controlling the evil knew he was there.

Maryanne rushed through the falling snow to the edge of the shelf where Qenzic and Lyramoor crouched, Squirrel on the elf’s shoulder. She knelt down beside them and peered down to the lake below. Heat from the living mass of worms radiated upwards on her face. It melted the snow before it hit the ground below, turning into rain.

She arrived just as a hooded figure walked out of the entrance. It was wearing a dark red cloak that covered most of its body, though Maryanne thought she saw a clawed foot. The dead that were piled around the slope started to move. The figure stopped a few paces outside of the door and peered upwards. Right in their direction.

The three of them dropped to their bellies.

“No way,” said Lyramoor.

“You think it saw us?” Qenzic asked.

“No way,” Lyramoor repeated.

“I don’t know if it saw us but it knows something’s up here.” Maryanne was sure of it.

Lyramoor groaned. “Our wizard just pissed the bed, didn’t he?”

“That’s a way of saying it,” Maryanne replied. “Squirrel, let Fist know.”

The little creature nodded and shook a tiny fist, chattering angrily.

“Yeah, I’m not happy with Locksher either,” the gnome agreed.

She looked again. The hooded figure hadn’t moved, but a pale arm rose from within the cloak and a long finger pointed up at them. A chorus of screeches rang out and a flurry of hairy figures burst out of the goblin caves that were scattered up and down the cliff side below.

“What are those?” Qenzic asked.

“I don’t know,” Maryanne said.

She shifted her eyes to spirit sight and saw a gray blur covering most of the slope. She blinked and realized that she was seeing the thousands of tiny strands of black spirit magic linking the larvae inside the dead to whatever was in the lake. She focused on the hairy beasts and noticed a thicker strand of dark red that connected them to the hooded figure.

The hairy creatures ran towards the three friends. They reached the cliff face below and started climbing. Their snarls could be heard up above as the creatures made their way nimbly up the wall. The three friends stood, drawing their weapons.

“What do we do?” Lyramoor asked, small throwing knives in each hand.

“Unless Fist and Locksher tell us otherwise, I guess we fight,” Qenzic said, drawing his father’s famous sabre, The Commander, with one hand, while pulling a small shield off his back with the other.

“We may not have to.” Maryanne said. She pulled her bow off her shoulder and drew an electric arrow from Chester, the magical quiver at her waist. “Whoever that person down there is, they’re controlling those creatures. I can hit ‘em from here.”

“Do it then,” Qenzic said. “Whatever it is, it’s definitely an enemy.”

Maryanne fitted the arrow to her bow and pulled it back, aiming right for the center of the shadow under that hood. She fired, her magically-enhanced bow sending the arrow at a much faster speed than a regular bow would.

At the last possible moment, the figure’s pale hand reached up and snatched the arrow out of the air. There was a crackle of electric energy as the arrow expended its power, but the figure below seemed unharmed. It turned the arrow over in its fingers.

“No way,” said Lyramoor again.

Maryanne was just as stunned. More so. That was an inhuman feat. She grabbed another arrow, wondering if it could catch two fired in quick succession. Then the figure looked back up at her.

It reached out and opened its pale hand, the arrow balanced on its palm. It raised its arm until the arrow pointed back at her. She caught a brief glimpse of a pair of black lips on a pale face as it blew.

The arrow shot back up at Maryanne, pointed straight for the center of her head. The arrow flew just as fast as it had when she had shot it. Her honed gnomish reflexes reacted just in time and she dodged to the side. The arrow caught her in the cheek and tore a deep furrow before continuing onward into the falling snow.

Maryanne’s hand flew to the side of her face. Somewhere within the figure’s hood amber eyes met hers. The gnome growled a promise, “Oh you’re mine.”

“Well! Time to fight,” Lyramoor said. He threw one of his knives down at the beasts climbing up from below. There was a yelp and the creature fell. “Hey, I know what these are. I’ve seen ‘em before. In a dwarf menagerie. Lupolds.”

“Lupolds?” Maryanne tore her eyes away from her new nemesis for a moment and looked at the approaching creatures closer. They had the heads and bodies of wolves, but had long legs and humanoid hands that could grasp and claw. “You’re right. But lupolds only live in Khalpany. The orcs sometimes keep them as pets.”

“Well, they’re here,” Lyramoor said. He threw another knife and there was another yelp. He shook his head and drew his falchions. “I could throw away all my knives, but I don’t have enough to get ‘em all.”

Maryanne glared a promise at the figure, but didn’t dare fire another arrow at it just yet. She began firing at the lupolds, sending them hurtling one at a time down to the black lake below. That didn’t stop most of them from reaching the top.

Locksher fought hard. Swinging his staff, willing it to a blade-like edge. He severed the red tendril, but more came. This was not the kind of battle he was used to. He made slow progress towards his slowly fading light as he sliced and hacked, shooting forward, just to be halted again.

This wouldn’t do. He had to reach the light before Fist electrified him. Otherwise, he had grown certain that part of his mind would remain trapped behind. He would lose the information he had gained, and possibly a large part of his faculties, forever.

He hacked and sliced until his sword arm ached, the arm he never trained with a sword, and he realized his problem. He was fighting the way Jhonate had. He wasn’t a warrior and in this mental space, why did he have to be? How ridiculous of him.

He reached out and flames shot from his fingers, igniting the red threads. A cluster of fireballs formed into existence and swirled around him, burning any tentacles that came close. He shot towards his destination, popping right through the window and back into his world.

He hit the wall beside his desk with a crash, but stood up triumphant, only to find that the rot had spread while he was gone. The walls were back with mold. The paint had peeled. The bookcases sagged and many of the books had fallen on the floor, their pages warped and water damaged. There was only one corner of the room that was still pristine and that was right by the front door.

Locksher ran towards it and shouted, “Fist! Do it now!”

Fist heard the yelping of the lupolds and caught flashes of the fighting from Squirrel’s eyes. The speedy little creature had darted up to the mound, and climbed atop one of the boulders. He continued to watch the fight so Fist would know what was happening.

Fist wanted to go help, but he didn’t dare leave Locksher’s side. The wizard was burning up as his body tried to fight off the parasitic invaders. If the fever got any hotter, he was going to have to act whether the wizard was ready or not.

“Rufus, are you going to go help them?” Fist asked.

The rogue horse was standing at stiff attention in front of the cave entrance, covered in a blanket of snow. He was focused on the battle, but hadn’t moved. “No. I stay,” he said. I protect you and Locksher if they come here.

Fist had to admit that was probably for the best. The creatures were likely here for Locksher after all. Thank you.

He looked back to the wizard. “Wake up, Locksher!”

The wizard’s eye fluttered and Fist saw his lips move. The ogre leaned in closer. Was he trying to say something? The wizard grimaced, and Fist saw a tiny maggot wiggling between two of his teeth.

“Gross,” he said worriedly. “What do I do? What do I do?”

Maryanne ran around the corner, breathing heavily. There was a deep gash on her cheek and blood streamed down her face, but she was smiling. “We killed the things it sent up here. They weren’t all that hard to fight. I don’t think it knew exactly who we were, because if it was me, I would have sent-.”

“Something bigger’s coming!” Qenzic exclaimed, running into view from the falling snow. “Don’t how what it is, but it’s huge and it’s hairy and it climbs fast!”

Fist swallowed, not knowing what to do.

“Hey! I think he’s trying to say something,” Maryanne said, pointing at the wizard,

Fist returned his attention to the wizard. Locksher grunted and his eyes opened. They were filled with rage. Locksher snarled and raised his hand. Flames rose from his fingers.

Fist lurched forward and grasped both of his master’s wrists. He could feel the heat of the flames against his face as he released vibrating strands of earth and air. Electricity surged through the wizard. Fist tried to control the charge, sending just enough to kill the worms without burning the man’s insides.

Locksher hung limp. Fist laid him gently to the ground and sent his magic into the man to make sure he was alright. The ogre laughed in relief. “His heart’s beating. He’s still breathing!”

“Good, cause we might need his help!” Qenzic said, backing up.

“Oh damn,” said Maryanne, grabbing an arrow from her quiver.

Fist rushed to the entrance and looked out as the large beast pulled itself up over the cliff’s edge. It was twelve-feet-tall at the shoulders and covered head-to-toe in white shaggy hair. Its head was large and ape-like and it had long yellow claws. It opened up its mouth and roared, exposing enormous fangs.

“What the hell is that?” Lyramoor asked.

Fist’s eyes widened. “I think that’s a real gwatch.”

“It does kinda look like Rufus,” Maryanne remarked, lifting her bow.

“Not. A. Gotch!” Rufus roared and charged towards the creature. While he was on all fours it was taller than him, but he was just as heavy.

It ran towards him, roaring as it went, spittle flying from its fangs. It reared back, its clawed arms ready to strike, but Rufus was approaching too fast. They collided in the center of the rock shelf. Rufus’ broad shoulder caught it in the middle of its chest and he swept out with one long arm, bowling it over.

It landed on its back and Rufus was on top of it, pounding its head with brutal punches of his fists. It rolled, bucking him off, and swung one arm out in a heavy backhand that caught Rufus in the face as he came to his feet. Rufus roared and grew larger.

Fist and the other companions could do nothing but stare at the vicious display as the gorilla-like creatures went at each other, their fur matted in freshly fallen snow.

“I don’t see how I could get a shot in,” said Maryanne.

The two huge beasts battled back and forth. With each blow, Rufus grew slightly larger until he was as tall on all fours as the other beast was standing on two feet. The gwatch, though bruised and battered, was driven mad by infestation and unable to concede the fight and retreat.

Finally, Rufus grabbed one of its legs and yanked it out from under it. The beast fell and he pounded it with his fists. Then, while it was dazed, he grasped it with both hands and reared up, lifting it high in the air. With an earsplitting roar, he threw the gwatch. It struck the ground with an audible crunch and rolled off of the cliff’s edge.

Rufus spat after it and beat his chest with one fist. While the others nodded in approval, he shrank gradually back to his normal size and walked back to them, breathing heavily.

“Good fight,” Fist said, patting the rogue horse fondly as he sent his magic through the bond, checking him for infestation. He didn’t find any larvae, but there were several deep lacerations that he started healing right away.

“Not a gotch!” Rufus said again, looking at Maryanne.

She nodded and patted his arm. “I agree with you, big guy. I was wrong before. No resemblance at all.”

“Hey,” said Lyramoor, who was peering over the edge at the slope below. “I’m glad that’s over and everything, but we should go now. Whoever that person down there is, they’re waving their arms around and there are big things moving in that lake.”

“He is correct. We should leave right away,” said a weak voice and they turned to see Locksher standing at the cave entrance, leaning against a boulder.

“Locksher are you alright?” Fist asked, rushing to his side.

The wizard waved him away. “We must get back to the Thunder People territory quickly so that Maryanne and Charz can contact their bonding wizards. I know what we’re facing now and we need all the help both schools can send us. We should probably contact King Demetrius as well.”

“What is it?” Lyramoor asked.

“We’re dealing with the power of the moonrat mother,” he said.

Fist said. “But you said that was impossible. She is dead.”

“We didn’t know everything. When Mellinda was hunted down, Sherl thought she had destroyed all the orange eyes, but she didn’t.” He held up two fingers. “We missed two. Two of them that had dug their way into the ground down at the bottom of where that black lake is now.” He glanced at Qenzic. “From that moonrat you fought at the beginning of the war, I’m guessing.

“When Jhonate cut Mellinda’s soul free from the foul dagger it was bound to, part of it escaped here. Now, the orange eyes weren’t strong enough to contain the entirety of Mellinda’s twisted soul. This is why she hadn’t tried to use them to escape before. But two of them were just enough to contain her power itself. Nothing but her unbridled rot and rage.”

“So that’s what’s controlling the worms,” Fist said in shock.

“Yes and no. Mellinda is the raw power that controls them yes, but her intelligence was cut free . . . destroyed. What’s left of her would be a relatively dangerous though ineffective threat alone. But something else is attached to that power,” he said, his eyes intense. “Mellinda’s link to the Dark Prophet, forged by the Dark Bowl.”

His words brought silence as everyone tried to absorb the portents.

“We’re up against the Dark Prophet himself?” Qenzic said in a shocked voice.

“No,” said Locksher, frowning. Then he blinked. “Oh! I can see how you would think that, from the way I said it.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “Sorry everyone. Take a breath. I don’t think he has quite enough power to take control of that thing from such a distance. At least not yet. No. That would have been bad, though.” His tone grew serious again. “What we are facing is bad enough as it is.”

“Then what is it?” Maryanne growled, not amused.

“One of his servants,” the wizard said. “I’m not sure who, but it felt female. Perhaps one of his old high priestesses. Whoever they are, they have very powerful bewitching magic.”

“And earth magic,” Fist added, thinking of the rock house.

“And air,” said Maryanne, fingering her wounded cheek.

“And they have a seemingly endless supply of slaves and beasts being sent from Khalpany to feed this evil,” Locksher said. “They’ve opened up one of the old passes through the mountains that was blockaded after the last great war.”

Fist nodded in understanding. “That’s how she can continue to lose scores of them every day fighting the Thunder People.”

“She arrived fairly recently,” Locksher added. “I caught just a glimpse of the operation before she noticed me looking. This is why we need the academy and Mage School up here right away. She could send an army of dead out into the rest of Dremaldria at any time.”

Lyramoor looked up at the dark clouds above. “Unfortunately we can’t wait this storm out. We’re going to have to head back now before she sends more creatures after us.”

There was a rumbling noise from the lake behind them as if in agreement.

“I can do it,” Rufus assured them happily.

The rogue horse grew larger again to accommodate taking all of them at once and the wizard sighed pitifully. “Come along, everyone. I’ll strap us on.”

Chapter Twenty Four

The grassy valley was broad and bowl-shaped and treeless. The bottom was a shallow grassy marshland fed by a stream that poured out of the edges of the Troll Swamps. The water was no deeper than a foot in most places and the marsh was full of small fish and frogs and was loud with the buzz of flies and other insects.

The armies began arriving a few days before the meeting and the border line of the two nations was marked with white painted stakes that were driven into the ground. Tensions were bound to be high and both sides were ordered to remain a fair distance from the line at all times. Camps were set up and units formed.

As per the terms of the agreement Xedrion had sent back with his messenger, Roo-Tan men travelled to the center of the valley and built a wide wooden platform in the midst of the shallow marsh. This is where the leaders of the two nations would meet to discuss the details of the treaty. On the water, but not in the water. A compromise since so many of the protector’s counsellors were wary of the merpeople and their affinity for water magic.

The Mer-Dan had wanted a large tent to cover the meeting, but Xedrion had objected. He wanted the terms discussed in the open, in full view of both armies. The Mer-Dan countered with a concern that a sudden rainstorm could come in and destroy the treaty documents. Another compromise was struck. The Roo-Tan raised four large poles around the platform and stretched a piece of canvas above the platform, providing shade and a modicum of protection from the elements.

When Justan arrived with Xedrion’s party on the day of the meeting, both armies were already staged and waiting. It was an awesome sight. Twenty thousand Roo-Dan savages on one side of the valley, their skin painted in various colors, small troops of armored demons scattered through their ranks.  On the other side, twenty thousand Roo-Tan warriors, archers and infantry, their ranks bristling with Jharro weapons.

The centuries of enmity between them had caused an air of thick tension that was palpable across the valley. Justan had seen large forces meet in battle before at the academy during the siege and later at the battle for the Mage School. But he didn’t want to imagine what this would be like, two forces so evenly matched.

War is an awful business, said Artemus from within the bond. Always best to avoid it if one can.

The last few weeks had been good for the spirit of Justan’s great grandfather. Justan had stayed away from the grove as much as he could and Artemus had been able to gain more and more control over the Scralag. It was a gradual process, and Justan devoted as much time to it as he could, conversing with Artemus and keeping him thinking. The old wizard hoped that he would be fully in control of himself by the time they were able to return to the Mage School and he could finally be reunited with his old wife Sarine.

Justan hoped he wouldn’t need Artemus’ help sooner. “I so want this treaty to work,” he said.

Me too, said Gwyrtha from underneath him. The rogue horse loved a good battle but she was gentle at heart. She had no desire to see a mass slaughter.

Success is doubtful, said Deathclaw, walking at Gwyrtha’s side. The raptoid’s face was a constant mask of irritation. His senses were disturbed by the close proximity of so many humans. The enemy is treacherous.

Deathclaw’s supposition was probably correct. The gnome warlord didn’t come all the way to Malaroo just to broker a dispute between two peoples that had nothing to do with his country. Tarah said that he wished to conquer the grove, but did not necessarily plan to do so through bloodshed. He also didn’t plan to destroy it, which told Justan that he likely wanted to mine it for its resources. Possibly Jharro sap for potions and wood to provide weapons for his armies.

Justan was certain that particular goal was somewhere at the heart of this meeting. He was also certain that Xedrion would never give in to such demands. Not after so long keeping any foreigners from coming near the holy place.

Once again, Justan wondered why the Prophet wasn’t here. The grove was within his realm of responsibility. He had told Tarah there were other places that needed his help, but what could be more important than a meeting that could possibly decide the future of the grove?

One thing that I learned through the years is that it does no good trying to understand the priorities of the Prophet, Artemus said. John is a complicated man with a point of view it is impossible for a common man to relate to. Just know that, though John is fallible, his mistakes are rare and when he does err it is never on the side of evil. IF he felt that his attention was needed more elsewhere, then it is a dire situation indeed.

I suppose you’re right, Justan said. It’s just so hard knowing that he could come in here and single handedly make sure things turned out right.

You don’t know that to be the case. The Prophet’s presence often complicates things as much as it helps, Artemus replied with a dry chuckle. When he’s around, people fear to make any decisions without asking him first. This is why he has few friends and rarely stays in one place for a long period of time. It’s a lonely life.

Justan realized that was true. Even during the siege of the Mage School, he came and went, always on some errand or another. Perhaps that was a secondary reason he hadn’t stayed.

As Xedrion’s procession reached the valley’s edge, the army parted to allow him through to the center platform. Four of the protector’s sons led the procession. Sen, Qurl, Fleen and Jhexin. He had left his oldest remaining son Hubrin in charge in Roo-Tan’lan along with the rest of his children in case the Mer-Dan planned some sort of attack on the city while they were away. Xedrion walked behind them with his first wife, Herlda at his right arm. On his left walked Tolynn, her petite frame covered in a shifting armor of Jharro wood. Jhonate and two of her sisters walked behind them.

Justan and his bonded, along with Tarah and her companions were forced to stay at the outskirts of the army. As outsiders, they were there in a supportive role only. Justan exchanged encouraging glances with Jhonate before the ranks of soldiers closed behind her.

Do not worry for me, Justan, she said, sending her thoughts through the Jharro ring she had given him. If there is treachery, I am not so easy to kill.

It is not you that I am worried for. When this thing’s over, you might be the only one left standing, he replied.

On the other side of the valley, the Mer-Dan army began to part as their procession arrived.

“There he is,” said Tarah with a glare as she watched the Mer-Dan procession descend to the valley floor. Aloysius stood head and shoulders higher than the Mer-Dan representatives that walked beside him.

The gnome warlord’s scholarly white robes looked a bit bulky on him today and he was wearing a jeweled circlet. What pompous arrogance. He was ruler of no country, yet he carried himself like a king.

For perhaps the tenth time this week, she fantasized about attempting an assassination. Esmine’s powers would make her invisible, she could sneak into the enemy army, draw her bow and fire an invisible arrow into the gnome’s back. He wouldn’t see it coming. No one would know that it wasn’t fired from someone in his own army.

Only Tarah knew that her papa and grampa wouldn’t approve. Her papa would have objected on moral grounds and Rolf because of the reputation she would gain. If she was still hearing their voices in her head, Rolf would have said, Tarah Woodblade does what has to be done, but she ain’t no assassin. And they would both be right in this case. Killing the gnome wasn’t a necessity at this point.

Aloysius had killed Esmine and started a war among his own people, but he hadn’t yet done anything to prove he was attempting the same thing here. She had only found the one track of his and, though the gnome had conquering on his mind, Sir Edge had poked enough holes in the evidence that even she was doubting it. None of the enemy tracks she had found since had supported her surety that the gnome planned an attack. The Roo-Dan warriors, though ever ready to fight if needed, were actually hopeful for the treaty to be signed.

“Look at his robes, Djeri,” she said. “Do they look a bit bulky to you?”

The dwarf squinted a bit as he peered across the valley towards the Mer-Dan procession. “Yeah. I think so. Like he’s wearing something under them. That’s not a good sign, but I doubt he’s planning on doing any attacking himself. That doesn’t seem to be his way. Maybe it’s just armor. He might be thinking assassination attempt.”

Tarah’s little dream of killing him with an invisible arrow died. “I think I’ll warn Tolynn anyway.” She sent the elf a message through the wristband she wore, Watch out for the gnome. He’s wearing something under those robes.

I shall keep that under advisement, the elf replied. But do not contact me through the wood again unless the reason is urgent.

Yes, ma’am, Tarah replied, frowning.

“You want me to go over there and scare him?” Esmine suggested, her child-like form appearing next to Tarah. “I could make him think he was on fire. That would be funny.”

Tarah had to admit, that did sound amusing. Still, she had to decline. “No, Esmine. He’s too smart. He’d figure out who was behind it. It’s best that he not find out about your powers.”

If he didn’t already know. It was an open secret that both the Roo-Tan and Roo-Dan had spies in each other’s camps. Xedrion made a point of finding out who the Roo-Dan spies were, then giving them false information. That was another disturbing thing. None of the spies had reported any sign of deception in the Mer-Dan commanders. They all seemed to be taking this treaty seriously.

“Maybe Tolynn will do it for us,” Esmine suggested. “She is fast. He could not stop her.”

“Perhaps. I doubt he has any defense for the things she can do,” Tarah said. She had casually suggested as much to her elf trainer just that morning. Tolynn replied that she would never attack during a veil of peace. But she hadn’t discounted the idea if there was treachery.

“You sure are feeling bloodthirsty today,” Djeri remarked, raising an eyebrow. He could only hear one side of the conversation, but he had a way of knowing Tarah’s thoughts. It was as if he understood her just by looking at her. “Have you given thought to the possibility that they might actually come to an agreement down there?”

“No,” she admitted. “I might not have proof, but there is no way that Aloysius doesn’t have some evil plan in mind. I just hope we get him when he tries it.”

Djeri gave her a reproachful look. “You know what you’re hoping for, right? If something goes wrong down there, these forty thousand people are going to war. No matter how it goes, that’s a lot of death. Is that what you want?”

“Well . . . no.” Tarah scowled, feeling guilty. “They should change your name from Djeri the Looker to Djeri the no fun . . . er.”

“I’m just saying have some perspective,” the dwarf said, putting his arm around her. He squeezed her close. “There will be another chance to take him down no matter what happens today. There is a lot at stake here.”

“Yeah. I know,” she said and squeezed him back. Still, she didn’t take her eyes off that gnome.

Xedrion bin Leeths wore his full set of Jharro armor this day. It resembled pieces of plate armor in many ways. Unlike the flowing way that the elves wore the wood, his armor was segmented consisting of breastplate, shoulder pauldrons, bracers, thigh plates and greaves. He also carried a helmet, which was tucked under one arm. He wouldn’t put it on unless he was ready to do battle. He hoped to avoid that this day.

He paused just before he reached the valley floor so that his children could move to the side and join the infantry lines. Only Herlda and Tolynn would be accompanying him to the meeting. If fighting began, his children would not be on the front lines, but they would be close. It was a sign of faith for his men.

Xedrion continued to the valley floor, where a ramp had been built crossing the short distance across the marsh to the center platform. He stepped onto the ramp and turned to face his army. Xedrion wasn’t a man for flowery speeches. He was a man who led by example and in fifty years as protector he had never let his people down.

Xedrion planted his Jharro staff into the mud of the marsh and raised his right fist into the air. Twenty thousand Roo-Tan men and women raised their fists in silent solidarity. Xedrion nodded. He would do his best to bring peace this day. If not, his people were willing to follow him to war.

He wore ten Jharro rings on his fingers. One from the Jharro weapon of each of the commanders of his army. If battle was to commence, he could give the order with the speed of thought. They could also signal him if the scouts saw any sign of treachery.

He retrieved his staff, then turned and walked up the ramp, Herlda and Tolynn right behind him. As he neared the platform, he saw that the Mer-Dan delegation was climbing the ramp on their side. First came Elder Qelvyn, the merman ambassador, followed by Witch Sorell, an old adversary of his and supposedly the main representative of the Roo-Dan.

Xedrion neared the long center table and nodded cordially to each of them, but his main focus was on the last two figures to walk up the ramp. First came this Scholar Aloysius that he had heard so much about. The gnome was haughty and handsome and walked with a practiced grace and agility. Xedrion knew right away that this was no mere scholar. This man had the bearing of a warrior.

Oddly for someone professing to be a scholar, the gnome wore a silver circlet on his brow. Tiny runes were inscribed in its surface. Xedrion knew enough about spirit magic runes to realize that they were protective in nature. Perhaps a defense against bewitching? The thought irked the protector. As if he would stoop to such trickery. In addition, the man’s stature seemed a bit broad for a gnome. Xedrion thought it likely that Aloysius was wearing armor under those robes.

Walking behind the gnome was perhaps the biggest surprise. The Stranger wore fine robes that seemed a bit dirty for use in official business like this. He had the weary and haggard look of a man who had not slept in some time. The oddest part though, was the ornate sword hilt that rose from behind his shoulder. Since when did one of the prophets carry a sword?

The representatives from the two sides stood across the table from each other as servants came up the ramps carrying chairs, along with chests containing the various treaty documents and signing instruments. Once the servants had left, Xedrion faced the merman ambassador.

“Elder Qelvyn, Witch Sorell, I am pleased to greet you this day and hope that we will soon come to an agreement befitting both our great nations,” he said. “To my right is my wife, Herlda bin Shun, representative of the Roo-Tan houses and to my left is Tolynn Yni, representative of the ancient elves of the grove.” Xedrion waited, expecting them to begin introductions of their own, but Elder Qelvyn and Witch Sorell merely nodded politely and looked to the gnome.

The gnome smiled graciously. “Protector, it is a great honor to meet you. I am Aloysius, gnome warrior and scholar of house Mur, and Warlord of the Third Great Alberri Empire.”

Xedrion was not a man easily shocked, but the gnome’s boldness surprised him. He did not find it amusing. “That is a . . . mouthful of titles. When I agreed to come to this meeting, I was told that you were a mere scholar from Alberri here to arbitrate this discussion.”

“Yes, well, some things have changed since your last communication. You see, this morning, the Mer-Dan Collective surrendered to me.” The gnome’s smile broadened. “They now exist under the auspices of the Third Great Alberri Empire, which means essentially, that you are here to negotiate with me.”

“I see,” said Xedrion, his jaw clenched. “Then this meeting is over.” He turned to leave.

“I beg you to reconsider,” said the warlord. “We are here to negotiate peace. If you leave now, I will be forced to see it as a declaration of war. My army will attack. Thousands of lives will be lost.”

Xedrion swung back around, his eyes dark with anger. “You would start peace negotiations with a threat?”

“What negotiations? You intend to leave without hearing my terms,” the gnome countered, his voice even. “I believe you will find them reasonable. Mutually beneficial, in fact. Is it not worth waiting to hear them before you decide to wage war?”

Xedrion stood there for a moment, undecided. Tolynn placed a hand on his arm and addressed the gnome. “Do I understand you correctly, Warlord? If we do not agree to your terms, you will attack?”

“Not at all, honored elf,” Aloysius said with a respectful nod. “I am perfectly willing to negotiate the terms with you. I am, however, a man hard-pressed for time. I am also a man who appreciates boldness. So I will tell you this. I intend to settle this today. We have until nightfall to agree to peaceful terms or there will be war. Here in this valley today.”

Xedrion growled. “Ignorant bully tactics! I was told you were here to conquer! I should never have agreed to this meeting.”

The gnome chuckled. “Then we would merely be having this discussion at a later date. On a battlefield stained with blood. This is much nicer, don’t you think? Please, sit. Hear my terms. I have had them drafted up for you to peruse. You are free to challenge points and I am willing to make changes if they suit my purposes. You can declare war on the Alberri Empire at any time simply by walking off of this platform.”

The gnome sat and nodded to Elder Qelvyn. The fat merman opened a small chest and began pulling out scrolls. He placed three copies of the treaty on the table in front of them. Witch Sorell then sat. As did the Stranger, though he winced slightly as he leaned back in the chair.

Xedrion continued to stand. The standards of propriety that he was raised with told him that he should leave in the face of such insulting behavior. Nevertheless, the people of his nation were looking to him hoping for peace. He looked to his wife.

His first marriage hadn’t been for love. Xedrion’s father had negotiated for Herlda’s hand with the Shuns as a political move. As such, theirs had never been a passionate union, but over the years they had developed a close trust and friendship. He respected her opinion and kept her close whenever large decisions loomed.

Herlda looked just as infuriated with the situation as he was, but she gave him a brief nod. “We came all the way here to negotiate. Let us not waste the time.”

“I agree,” said Tolynn.

Xedrion forced himself to let go of his outrage and the three of them sat.

“I am so happy to see that you are willing to talk,” Aloysius said, clasping his hands together. At that moment the Stranger coughed weakly and the gnome looked at him as if he had forgot the man was there. “Oh. I apologize. With all the tension, I forgot to introduce the fourth member of our party.”

“I know him. We have met once before,” Xedrion replied. The Stranger had come to Roo-Tan’lan to introduce himself when Xedrion had first become protector. It wasn’t a pleasant social call. He had wanted assurances that Xedrion’s people would stay out of a certain area of the Troll Swamps. “Greetings, Matthew. A friend of mine tells me that Warlord Aloysius has you under his control.”

The Stranger gave him a wan smile in return and Xedrion looked to the gnome for an explanation. If the protector’s knowledge of the situation surprised the gnome, he didn’t show it.

“Under my control? Nonsense. He’s the Stranger.” Aloysius addressed the man in a commanding tone. “Matthew, tell this man that I am your master.”

“I will not,” the Stranger replied, his voice weary.

“You see?” Aloysius said.

Xedrion narrowed his eyes. “Matthew, if he isn’t controlling you, what are you doing here? When did you begin to take sides in negotiations?”

“I am not here to take sides,” the Stranger replied. “I am merely here as a witness.”

“A witness to what?” Xedrion asked.

“That I cannot yet say,” Matthew replied. “My mind is still a bit clouded. I have a ways to go to win back the approval of my master.”

“Are you finished?” Aloysius asked the Stranger and from the sound of his voice he hadn’t expected the man to talk.

“Yes, Warlord,” Matthew replied obediently and Xedrion wondered for a moment if the man had gone crazy.

The gnome smiled again. “Now, let us get to business. Please open the scrolls before you. I believe the decision to sign will not be so difficult.”

Justan watched the goings on from the top of the valley, his thoughts filled with concern. With the canvas top in the way, he could only see Xedrion’s side of the group and only from the waist down. Jhonate did not know the content of the discussions but from what she had told him through the ring so far, her father was not pleased.

He stepped closer to Gwyrtha and reached out to scratch her behind the ears. “Can you hear anything, girl?”

Too many people in the way, she replied. Everyone is whispering.

This was the part of the day he had been dreading. The waiting. So much of his life lately had been waiting. Waiting through endless meetings with Jhonate’s father. Waiting to get married. Fist was up in the mountains facing off against some horrible evil force and he was standing around waiting while important decisions were made.

“You have a sour face,” observed the voice of a young girl.

Justan looked and saw that it was the elf child that Tarah Woodblade’s rogue horse liked to parade around as. She was a mischievous thing, tending to pop around at random times, startling people. The servants in the palace were certain she was a ghost. Justan thought her antics were kind of cute.

“Hello, Esmine,” he said. “I just wish I knew what was going on down there.”

She popped out of existence and reappeared in Gwyrtha’s saddle. “I know what they’re saying. But I’m not supposed to tell anyone.”

Deathclaw hissed in annoyance. “That thing again. Do not talk to her. She finds it encouraging.”

“I wasn’t talking to you, Scaley,” the little girl said and stuck her tongue out at him.

Justan glanced over to where Tarah Woodblade was standing and saw that she was talking to the exact same girl child. Whatever it was that she was saying was making Tarah quite angry. So she could appear several places at once. Maybe she really was able to monitor what was going on down in the meeting. How interesting.

“Hey, be nice Deathclaw,” Justan admonished. I want to see if she really knows what they are saying. He turned his attention back to the girl. “Why aren’t you supposed to tell anyone?”

Esmine lowered her voice to a whisper. “Because then people would know that I know.”

Justan decided to play along. He whispered back, “Well now I know that you know because you just whispered it to me. Will you please tell me what they are saying?”

She glanced around conspiratorially, then leaned down towards his ear and whispered, “No.” she sat back in the saddle and lifted her nose up at him. “Besides, I don’t have time. You have a visitor.”

“What?” he asked.

“Sir Edge!”

Justan turned around to see Aldie, son of Lance running in from the tree line to the west of the valley. The academy student had been out with the Roo-Tan scouts. “What is it?”

The young man stopped in front of him, breathing heavy. “We found a creature in the grass just west of here. She says that she is looking for you.”

“A creature?” Justan said in surprise.

Aldie scratched his head and let out an embarrassed laugh. “You probably won’t believe this, but it’s a gorc in a dress.”

Chapter Twenty Five

“A gorc? In a dress?” Justan asked.

“And a wig?” said Aldie with an apologetic shrug. “I know it sounds crazy. The Roo-Tan were just as surprised as me. They usually kill goblinoids on sight, but it was just so strange and it started asking for you.”

“Why me?” He looked up at Esmine’s child-like illusion that was still sitting on Gwyrtha’s saddle. “Is this your doing? Are you playing a game?”

“Nope,” the little girl said and disappeared.

Deathclaw hissed and approached Aldie. “I have seen one like this before. Where do you have it?”

“Just west of here back the way I came. In the trees,” the man said.

“You’ve seen a gorc in a dress?” Justan asked the raptoid.

“In the war. Durza, remember?” the raptoid replied.

Justan’s eyes widened and he nodded. Deathclaw had told him of the day he had gone to Pinewood with Beth, Hilt, and Charz, and had found a gorc with bewitching magic hidden in the mayor’s house. She had been living there with Talon, but the raptoid had already gone before they arrived. “You didn’t tell me she wore a dress.”

The raptoid shrugged. “I did not think it important.

Tarah Woodblade jogged over to them. “Esmine says that you have an unexpected visitor?”

“You could say that,” Justan replied and said to Deathclaw, “It seems an odd coincidence that Durza should show up here and now, don’t you think?”

“Talon could be involved,” Deathclaw said, with a mix of dread and anticipation.

The raptoid had searched diligently for her right after the war. He and Justan had even gone back to Pinewood to question Durza further in case Talon had returned, but the gorc had disappeared. The Pinewood refugees had returned home to find the mayor’s house depleted of stores, but strangely tidy.

“Who is Talon?” Tarah asked.

“Deathclaw’s sister,” Justan replied. “She’s a deadly assassin. She worked for the Ewzad Vriil during the war. She killed a very close friend of mine.”

Tarah’s face grew concerned. “Aloysius is up to something in the meeting. If there’s an assassin around I worry that this may be part of his next ploy.”

“But why involve me?” Justan wondered. The Dark Prophet had sent the night beast after him. Could he have sent Talon too? But why show up now? It did seem a bit too convenient not to have something to do with the meeting. He gave Tarah a questioning look. “I know that Esmine has been listening in. What has the gnome done so far?”

Tarah frowned. “He says that he is the ruler of the Mer-Dan now and has told the protector that they will attack unless he signs the treaty.”

Justan nodded slowly. He had worried something like this would happen. “We have a swift retreat plan in place if that attack should happen.” He looked to Deathclaw. “We should go and see what the gorc has to say.”

Me too, said Gwyrtha.

“I’ll come with you,” Tarah said. “I can tell you if it is being truthful. Esmine will let us know if something happens at the meeting.”

They followed Aldie into the trees and Justan related Deathclaw’s encounter with Durza briefly to Tarah. “She had been hiding from the moonrat mother and using bewitching magic to keep moonrats and trolls away. She wasn’t evil, though. Beth was nice to her, right, Deathclaw. You stayed there a couple days, didn’t you?”

“Charz liked her,” Deathclaw replied with something akin to disgust. “He wanted to bring her with us, but Beth said she was supposed to stay behind.”

Tarah looked confused by that statement. “But if Beth didn’t think she was a danger, it doesn’t make sense for her to be mixed up in something evil here.”

“You have a point, but I don’t see how her appearance in Malaroo could mean anything good,” Justan replied.

They didn’t have to go far. Two Roo-Tan scouts had forced the gorc to kneel in a small clearing. One of them had the point of a Jharro sword pointed at her chest, while the other had an arrow drawn and ready to fire.

Durza wore a badly stained blue dress and wore a curly blond wig with bits of twigs and leaves stuck in it. Like most gorcs, her skin was a leathery mottled green, but her cheeks were covered in an obscene amount of rouge and her lips had been painted pink.

Upon seeing her, Deathclaw rushed in, one hand gripping her by the throat. “Where is Talon, gorc?”

The gorc’s eyes bulged. “Ack! Death . . . Claws! Don’t hurt . . . Durza! I’m . . . friend, ‘member me?”

“Don’t hurt her, Deathclaw,” said Justan. “We don’t know that she’s done anything wrong.”

The raptoid released her with a hiss and sniffed at his hand. “She stinks!”

“That’s my perfoom!” Durza said with a frown. The gorc clutched her throat. “Wanted to smell nice. Why you scratchedes me? Don’t wanna talk to you no ways. I comes to talk to Sir Edge.”

“We will take charge of her,” said Justan to the two Roo-Tan scouts. “You can go back to your work. You too, Aldie.”

The two scouts stepped back and lowered their weapons. Justan didn’t have any authority over them, but they knew who he was and the creature was just a lowly gorc. They nodded and headed off into the trees, Aldie trotting reluctantly after them.

“I’m Sir Edge,” Justan said. He walked towards Durza but didn’t get too close in case there was some kind of trick. Deathclaw, Gwyrtha, keep your senses sharp in case there’s anyone else nearby.

I don’t smell anyone else but the gorc, Gwyrtha said, but she prowled the perimeter of the clearing anyway.

“You are Sir Edge?” Durza said hopefully. She stood, adjusting her wig and brushing off the skirts of her dress.  “I am Durza. I’m a good friend. My master tells me to find you.”

“Why?” Justan said. “Who is your master?”

“My master is the Stranger man,” she replied.

Justan frowned.

“The Stranger is in the meeting with the protector right now. He seems to be on Aloysius’ side,” Tarah said.

“No!” said Durza. “He taked him!”

“I will find out the truth here.” Tarah approached the gorc, reaching out her hand.

“It might not be wise to touch her,” Justan warned. “We don’t know-.”

Tarah gripped the gorc’s shoulder. She gasped, her eyes wide.

“Whatchoo doin’?” Durza said, drawing back in alarm. “That’s my brains!”

Tarah stepped back letting out a slow breath. She swallowed. “She’s telling the truth. She and Deathclaw’s sister have been living with the Stranger for months. Talon came here with her. She’s around here somewhere.”

“It’s over here!” said the child-like voice of Esmine.

The little elf girl had appeared and was pointing up to a large leafy tree. Deathclaw was there in a rush. He shot up the tree.

Watch out for her tail! The world slowed down for Justan.

He saw Deathclaw lash out at a shadow near the trunk. There was a tussle, a flurry of hisses and both raptoids fell breaking branches as they went. Talon was wearing a black robe that glowed a dull gray to his spirit sight. He caught a glimpse of her frightening face as the two raptoids crashed to the ground in a tangle.

Somehow Talon broke free and rolled to her feet. She let out a plaintive chirp and held out both hands, her claws spread wide. “Sstop! My masster ssends me!”

Deathclaw’s sword rang clear from its sheath. “You will not get away this time!”

“No!” said Durza. “Don’t hurts her!”

He came at her and swung his sword. She ducked under the blow and rolled to the side, narrowly missing the follow-up slash of his tail barb.

Justan kept pace with them, his own swords drawn. Peace sucked away at his emotion, but he pushed the power of the sword away. He wanted his anger right now. Talon had killed Master Coal and he wanted that thought burning bright. Strangely enough, the sword obeyed. He looked for an opening.

“I am not here to kill!” Talon insisted, staying just out of Deathclaw’s reach.

Deathclaw maneuvered around her, forcing her between him and Justan. Gwyrtha growled ready to leap. Stay back! Justan warned. You’re too big a target for her poison.

“She’s telling the truth,” Tarah said, torn as she watched the encounter. She had drawn her bow and had an arrow fitted to the string just in case they needed her. “At least Durza thinks so.”

“If that’s true, Talon, then stand still!” Justan commanded.

Talon stopped and threw back her hood. Her head was shaped like a human female’s but bald and earless, covered in fine gray scales. Her eyes were those of a cat’s. She had two slits for a nose and a large mouth with luscious feminine lips. They drew back as she hissed with hesitation and Justan’s own lips drew back in a snarl as her razor sharp teeth came into view. He had seen that face in nightmares.

“Hold out your tail!” he snapped.

The base of her robe lifted and her tail slid into view. At Justan’s mental command, Deathclaw’s sword flashed, lopping off the end of her tail. The barb hit the ground, a bead of clear liquid dripping from the tip. Talon sucked in a breath.

“Noo!” wailed Durza again and a wave of compulsion swept over the clearing, demanding that everyone drop their weapons.

Tarah fell to her knees, her bow dropping from her fingers. Justan felt the power of the magic battering against the bond. His hands loosened on his swords. Deathclaw hissed as he resisted the spell.

Gwyrtha acted. She struck the gorc, pinning Durza to the ground with her powerful claws. The gorc cried out.

“Sstop, Durza!” Talon demanded, pointing a long clawed finger. Durza whimpered, but dropped the attack

“Don’t hurt her, Gwyrtha,” Justan said and the rogue horse backed off, growling.

Talon opened up her robe and let it drop to the ground. Her form was smooth and gray. Scaled, but feminine in shape, Ewzad Vriil’s evil work. “Leave her be. Killss me if you must. Masster ssays not to let you killss me. But do it if you musst! I am broken. He triess to fix me. The Prophet triess to fix me. I try! But it iss hard. To die iss best! Durza can tellss you the message.”

Tarah picked up her bow and rose back to her feet, breathing heavily as she recovered from Durza’s magic. “I think she’s being honest. In Durza’s memories, Talon is trying to change. She struggles, but she tries.”

Justan shook his head. “I’m sorry, but after all she’s done, I can’t just take your word for it.”

Justan darted forward, thrusting out with his left sword. Talon smiled, accepting her fate. Peace plunged into her abdomen.

Time slowed further. As the steel of the sword pierced her skin, her emotions and pain were sucked away and Justan’s mind was flooded with understanding. He had done this with Talon once before, but he had seen very little. His sword had been in her flesh only an instant that time and he had seen only a brief glance at her soul.

This was different. As the blade slid through her, memories and thoughts began to pour through him. He saw her daily struggle. Her indecision. Her desire for life and death.

It wasn’t enough. He did something he had never tried before. He seized her thoughts and pulled, using his bond with the sword as a conduit for his mind.

The tip of the sword passed through the core of her and he sent his thoughts into her mind. He searched through the shattered core of her memories, piecing together for himself who and what she truly was. The events of her life flooded through him and the truth was so staggering it was hard to bear.

She truly had been broken by Ewzad Vriil. Talon had been a wild animal when the wizard had taken her. Fierce and skilled, but without the capacity for reason that Deathclaw had. Ewzad had given her a thinking innocent mind, then cruelly turned her into an evil twisted monster that loved pain and she had adored him for it.

Somewhere along the line, she had been broken once again. This time by Mellinda who taught her to fear a lack of pain. Then they were both gone. She was freed from their power, but not their influence. The evil still lurked within her, a constant temptation. The prophets had helped to temper it, but she still struggled. Why, she did not know.

Justan stopped in shock, his sword protruding from her back. He knew what it was that she was missing. He knew why she was broken. Talon knew pain and pleasure in equal measure. Saw them as old friends. But she did not understand them.

She had no empathy. No understanding of the way others felt. She knew such things as love and sorrow only as abstract concepts with no true meaning. This is why the prophets had been unable to fix her.

“He takess!” Talon howled. Horrified at having her sensations sucked away and her soul laid bare. “He takess!”

“Now I give,” Justan promised.

Justan reversed the magic of the sword, returning her pain and adding his own. He started with his childhood, the pain of a bruised knee, the pleasure of his mother hugging him and kissing it better. He showed her the pain he had felt when his father had left on a long journey and the pleasure he had felt upon his return. He shared the pleasure that came from the companionship of his close friends and loved ones. He showed her the pain of guilt and loss that had come from Qyxal’s death.

Then he began to show her the pain caused by her actions, starting with his horror back in Ewzad’s keep as he had watched her slaughter the prisoners in the hallway. Then the sorrow and fear she had caused Nala and her family when she had killed all their animals. He showed her the pain and loss caused by her murder of Master Coal, starting with his own sorrow and continuing with the pain felt by his family and bonded. Finally, he shared with her the pain and mourning Deathclaw had felt when he had seen the suffering she had caused and been unable to stop it.

When he was finished, Justan tried one more thing he had never thought to do before. He reached his elemental magic through the sword and used the temporary bond its magic had created with her soul to enter her body and heal the wound as he withdrew the blade slowly. He was able to repair the severed blood vessels, tissues, and organs as if she were his own bonded. He did as much as he could and when the sword left her body, only a small gash in her skin remained.

Justan stumbled backwards, his strength sapped by the intensity of the magic he had used. Gwyrtha moved behind him, giving him something to hold onto. He clutched her saddle and breathed deeply, pulling from her energy to bolster himself.

Talon collapsed to the ground, sobbing. For the first time in her life, she felt true human sorrow. Deathclaw, who had only understood a small part of what Justan had done, crouched next to her. He let out a questioning chirp.

“Talon!” Durza cried. She scrambled up off the ground and ran to the raptoid’s side. “Talon, is you okay?”

She put her hand on Talon’s arm and the raptoid lunged at her, throwing her arms around the gorc. “I’m ssorry, Durza. I’m ssorry.”

“What did you do to her?” Tarah asked.

“Did you . . . fix her?” Deathclaw asked.

“No,” Justan said. “I forgave her.”

Talon still had a long way to go before she was fixed. He wasn’t even sure that was possible. But he didn’t think she was a threat anymore. At least not for now.

He shook his head, a clear memory coming back to him like a jolt. He had been so involved in the magic he had missed it. A sudden dread pooled in his stomach.

“Mellinda is still alive. I don’t know how, or why, but she’s somehow mixed up with those troll creatures and the behemoth under the swamp.” He gasped as another important bit of information awakened in his mind. “We have to get back! She has some sort of a deal with Aloysius. She’s coming here and she has the Rings of Stardeon.”

“Uh,” said Esmine’s child-like form, appearing suddenly before them. “I think she might already be here.”

“This is impossible!” said Tolynn.

Xedrion set down the scroll on the table before him, his mind in turmoil. Actually, it wasn’t impossible. The insidious thing about this treaty was that it was reasonable. He could come up with well-thought arguments about why he should agree to almost every clause. There were several sticking points, but they were minor in the big scheme of things, especially considering what the cost of refusal would be.

“I am sorry to hear that you have a disagreement,” Aloysius said calmly. “What would that be?”

“You want Jharro wood to arm your forces!” she replied angrily. “That is a gift only given to those who are chosen by the trees and who promise to devote themselves to the tree’s defense!”

“I ask only for wood. It does not have to be living. I would be happy being supplied with dead wood,” the gnome replied.

“That wood is sacred! It belongs to the trees!” she said, her dark eyes narrowed in anger.

“No it isn’t,” said Xedrion numbly. “The trees give of themselves willingly and once the wood becomes dead, it is of no use to them. We have begun a custom of returning dead wood to the trees, but that is a custom less than three hundred years old.”

“Returning it is the right thing to do,” she said, shocked that he disagreed.

“Which is what you said three hundred years ago when the custom began.” He looked at her. “What do the trees do with the wood when it is returned?”

“That is of no consequence,” she said.

“They do nothing with it,” Xedrion said, answering his own question. This was a particular custom that had bothered him for some time. “They store it. Hold it in their cores. Why? It is no use to them. They do it because you ask it of them. If you asked tomorrow, they would give it back to you freely. Three hundred years of Jharro weapons that once belonged to living Roo-Tan men and women before they gave their lives in service to the grove. The trees would likely be happy to be rid of it.”

Tolynn’s jaw dropped. “What would you have us do with it? Send it out into the world, stirring up greed?”

“I am aware of the reasons,” Aloysius said. “There was a time in the long past when the people of your race traded freely of the groves resources with the world and it only brought you ruin and despair. The power hungry wanted more and were willing to destroy the grove to get it no matter the consequence.” He waved his hand. “It’s a cycle that goes on and on. I have read your history thoroughly.”

Xedrion gritted his teeth at the gnome’s arrogance and callousness. That more than anything made him want to throw the treaty back in his face. Yet, he held back, the lives of the twenty thousand behind him staying his hand.

“I, however, have no desire to plunder the grove. I am very well aware of the service that those wonderful trees do for the world and I applaud it. In fact, I wish to help protect it. By becoming a partner with the Alberri Empire, we offer you the added protection of our vast armies, should you ever come under attack. As part of the empire, the Mer-Dan Collective will help in that effort. In fact, with your already secluded location, it is unlikely that anyone could ever get through us to get to you. If they did, you would still have the almighty Roo-Tan defenders as the ultimate buffer.”

He grew more and more proud of himself as he went. “We offer you trade and access to resources that you have long walled yourself away from. In exchange, I merely ask for the dead wood that, as Xedrion pointed out, is no longer of use to you. Also occasional shipments of Jharro Sap, but nothing more than you feel the trees can give. Their health is of the upmost concern to us.”

“Absolutely not,” Tolynn said, her voice filled with the anger of self-righteousness, mixed with the wisdom of countless years. “You can tell it in his voice and mannerisms, Xedrion. This is just a beginning. In a few years they will demand more. War will come with this one in charge and when that happens, they will want to renegotiate. They will ask for more wood. ‘What is one less tree?’ he will ask. ‘The grove is healthy. It can absorb the loss. Cut the oldest one down, carve it up and send it to us. We will not ask for another’.”

She shook the scroll. “He already asks for Roo-Tan soldiers to bolster his armies when war comes.”

“If I may rebut,” Aloysius said, raising a finger. “There are foundational restrictions unchangeable in the treaty. No living tree may ever be harmed. No more than twenty percent of the Roo-Tan armies can ever be called up in time of war. I understand that would be a difficult sacrifice, but your troops would only ever be used for defensive purposes and not to invade another nation.”

Everything the gnome said set Xedrion’s indignation ablaze, and at the same time made him more convinced that he should consider signing.

The gnome leaned back. “As I said, protection of the grove is the foremost of my concerns. I really do not see how you can have an objection. Especially since none of this would affect your people at all. This treaty is between the Third Great Alberri Empire and the Roo-Tan nation. Not a single one of my soldiers need ever set foot in the grove, including myself. Unless invited, of course.”

“I find your attitude outrageous!” Tolynn snarled. She looked to the Stranger, who sat in his chair calmly watching as if he had no opinion. “What say you, Stranger?”

“I merely observe,” he replied in an infuriatingly bland manner.

“You may feel free to leave at any time,” Aloysius told Tolynn, giving her a gracious nod. “As I said, the treaty is not with your people. Your presence here is a courtesy only and not necessary for the signing. Even if we were to go to war and the Roo-Tan extinguished, my empire would stage our own protection around the grove. Your people will be safe.”

“Xedrion!” Tolynn snapped. “This is ridiculous. He asks for wood and threatens you and then says he asks nothing of my people!”

“He has done his research, Tolynn. I do not know how he would have seen a copy of the original agreement between our peoples, but nevertheless he has been thorough,” Xedrion replied and Aloysius accepted the compliment with a smug nod. “Everything he asks of us is something owed to us by you in that agreement. The dead wood belongs to us. That you cannot dispute, no matter the current custom. As does any reasonable request for sap. If we decide to give it, you must provide it.”

“Xedrion!” she said.

“Now I do not wish you to leave, Tolynn,” Xedrion said calmly. “But please, give me a moment to think.”

The elf sat down in shock and Xedrion looked to Elder Qelvyn and Witch Sorell, both of whom had remained quite silent throughout the discussion. Something he found quite bizarre, especially from Witch Sorell, who had always been both a voracious and loquacious enemy.

“What say you two? You have been strangely quiet. Qelvyn, when you came to me those few weeks ago, did you know that this would be the matter of our meeting today?”

Qelvyn, gave him a sweaty smile. “I was under negotiations with the warlord at the time, yes. Though I did not know how they would end. I am quite happy with the result and I do hope you sign.”

“And you, Sorell?” Xedrion said. “How many times over the years did you scream at me and threaten to one day steal my children? I have almost killed you multiple times. Why do you stay silent? I would think you bewitched if Tolynn had not already assured me that no spirit magic was involved.”

She bared her teeth at him. “If you sign, I revoke my previous threats. The Roo-Dan tire of Roo-Tan thuggery. We want only peace.”

He snorted. At least she hadn’t changed too much. He turned to his wife, the one person he knew would keep a level head. “What do you think, Herlda?”

During the whole discussion, she had said nothing, spending her time pouring over the document again and again. This was a great skill of hers, something Xedrion valued. She could always find a hole in a contract. It was the main reason why Xedrion’s agreements were known for being iron clad.

Herlda shook her head slowly. She look sad. “I see sacrifices, but the benefits outweigh them. It is an agreement I would advocate if this person’s disposition were not so loathsome and if he did not give it to us under threat of extermination. I just do not think any contract he gives us can be trusted.”

“I understand that you do not know me,” Aloysius said, giving her a patient look. “I have spent most of my years hard at study and training in my native country. However, if you look at the back of the scroll, you will see the long list of precious treaties and negotiations that I have both brokered and been witness to, none of which have been broken by my side of the agreement.”

Xedrion was tired of the flippant nature of this gnome. He was not yet willing to say no to the agreement, but he had been coy long enough. It was time to be blunt. “What of the war that you started in your own country, warlord? Setting dark wizards against your own people? Assassinations? What of the rogue horse you slaughtered in an attempt to bind it to a piece of dead Jharro wood. What assurances can you give me that the wood I give you won’t go towards that same end?”

The smug look on Aloysius’ face faded. “I see that a little bird has been tweeting lies in your ear. The war in my country is not one that I started. It is however, something that I admit I encouraged. The government has been too long lenient with the dark wizards. It was far past time that they were rooted out. From the last reports I have heard, that work is nearly done. I will leave here and return to a kingdom cleansed of evil.”

He clasped his hands in front of him and leaned forward, his gaze earnest and intense. “As for the rogue horse incident, that was a mistake on my part. Regrettable, but something I cannot take back. Only learn from. I will not seek to bind a rogue horse again. That I promise you. I will not, however, promise what else the dead wood will or will not be used for.

“Let me be frank with you, Protector. I am building this empire for a reason. It is a just and noble cause. A great evil is coming. I have seen the portents and what I do now is to prepare the way for the defense of the known lands. Now you may not like my tactics, Protector. You may not like me. However, what I do is for your benefit and the benefit of all life and I will not allow anyone, no matter how noble their intentions, to stand in my way.”

“Warlord Aloysius,” said the Stranger suddenly. “If I might make a suggestion.”

Aloysius froze and turned a bland look the Stranger’s way. He hid it well, but Xedrion could tell that he had not expected any interruptions from his supposed impartial witness. “You wish to speak, Stranger?”

“May I? It’s nothing really. Just a small suggestion. It will not interfere in your negotiation. I promise. It may even help.”

“Why are you so hesitant, Stranger?” Tolynn asked. “You are one of the supreme authorities in the land, after all. I would almost believe that he really is controlling you.”

“What is your suggestion?” Aloysius asked, his tone dark.

“Only this.” He gave the gnome a warning look and said with specific tone. “Don’t use the big stick.”

The gnome’s jaw clenched. “I do what needs to be done and nothing more,” Aloysius said grimly. As he spoke that last statement, a hardness entered Aloysius’ eyes that Xedrion had seen in men before. Always just before they did something awful.

As if on cue, a series of reports came in from several of the rings on his finger. The scouts were reporting a strange fog approaching from the south. Fog would usually not be cause for alarm, but this was heading in a line unaffected by the wind and it was headed right along the stream that led to the valley.

The gnome stood. “I believe we have discussed most of what there is to discuss. My offer has been fair and beneficial and I realize that your reluctance is understandable. However, I have one last thing to offer you. Something, I think, that will make your decision easy. Come, Protector, walk to the edge of the platform with me. I have a demonstration to show you.”

Xedrion prepared to signal his men. “This fog that approaches. Is it your doing?”

Aloysius smiled and though his voice brightened, the hardness did not leave his eyes. “It is a gift. I am going to give you and the Roo-Dan something you have wanted for a very long time.”

The gnome left the table and walked slowly to the edge of the platform. Xedrion stood and followed him. Aloysius waved his arm to a steward wearing a red sash. The man nodded and sent a signal that was passed along. The section of the Mer-Dan army waiting at the southernmost rim of the valley parted and a large group of people were led down towards the marshes.

“Those are Roo-Tan prisoners,” Herlda said.

“And they will be returned to you as stated in the treaty,” said Aloysius. “That is not what I want to show you.”

The thick fog reported by the scouts came into view, flowing along the water line, which was also the dividing line between the two armies. The fog continued until reaching the southernmost section of the valley where the prisoners were being led.

Xedrion sent a command through all ten rings. Ready yourselves.

“Would you like to know what is in that fog, Protector. Would you like to know what it is that I could give you that would guarantee you sign my document?”

Xedrion hesitated. “Tell me.”

Aloysius made a slashing signal with one hand. The fog dissipated. Xedrion swallowed, his hand tightening on his staff. Standing in the streambed were hundreds of huge creatures. Each of them a disturbing mix of man and troll. At their head, reclining on a palanquin was a woman wearing ancient Roo apparel. Her fingers sparkled with gems.

The gnome leaned closer and said softly in Xedrion’s ear, “I would give you back control of the Troll Swamps, Protector. I would give you back your ancient city of KhanzaRoo and I would give you the Troll Queen!”

Chapter Twenty Six

As Mellinda ended her spell and the thick fog lifted, the Troll King was awestruck by the sheer numbers of the two armies arrayed before him. He had been aware of Mellinda’s agreement with the Gnome Warlord and the Mother’s own plan, but he was unprepared for this. On his right side, twenty thousand Roo-Dan men and women, mixed with a scattering of demon races. On his left, twenty thousand Roo-Tan men and women, defenders of the grove.

Murtha gripped his shoulder. “This is bad, K-king. We should flee.”

“Trust in the wisdom of the Mother,” he said as he patted her hand gently. He understood her concern. His own people seemed so small in comparison.

He looked at Mellinda, sitting on her palanquin, and saw fear on her face. He knew with a sudden certainty that she had not been aware of the sheer numbers that would be involved either.

The king frowned at the woman. “Your plan seems unsound, Mellinda. The numbers are overwhelming. Should they come to blows, we may be crushed. Do you wish to flee?”

Mellinda licked her lips. “Not yet. The plan is still in motion.” She nodded toward the prisoners being herded to the edge of the marsh. “You see? The warlord is keeping his side of the deal. When he is ready, he will signal us. The Mother will feast on the prisoners. Then the fighting will begin and she can have any of the Roo-Tan that come within her reach. Our people only fight those that try to escape our way. Once we arrive back in KhanzaRoo, our numbers will swell by thousands.”

So she thought. He shook his head sadly and found his gaze wandering back to the twenty thousand Roo-Tan with their gray wood weapons. All their eyes were on his people now and in particular Mellinda.

He did not know these people, but he felt a sorrow bloom within him at the thought of their destruction. He didn’t know why. After all, their loss was his people’s gain.

Arcon’s laugh was both eager and fearful, “Oh, you foolish witch. I should have known that your plan would fall to ruins.”

Nonsense, Mellinda snapped. Everything is still set up as he promised.

“He said thousands of Roo-Tan would be here, but twenty? Impossible. We have eight hundred.”

You know we are not to attack directly. Aloysius’ forces will do the work. We will merely clean up what’s left, she assured him.

Arcon snorted. “When the battle is joined, those Roo-Tan will be more afraid of us than their usual foes. Look at them. They’re already pointing at us in fear. Where do you think they will focus their attack?”

We will be safe behind the mouth of the Mother, she said uneasily. And I can use the rings to destroy those that come close.

“Will that stop thousands of arrows fired by their bowmen?” he asked and laughed again. “You know, since you have taken over, I have realized more and more that this piece of you that was cut free and fled to the eye inside of me was the stupid part. All your vast intelligence and ancient wisdom withered away and died with your powers.”

Mellinda shoved his thoughts away. She could raise a shield of air to protect most of the trollkin from volleys of arrows. That wasn’t her current concern, though. Her eyes were focused on the center platform.

Aloysius was standing there with a man that could only be the Protector of the Grove. He was pointing in their direction and he was smiling. But the expression on the protector’s face wasn’t anger or fear.

A terrifying thought struck her. What if the protector did not decide to fight? What if he joined the gnome? From the look on his face he was considering it. His gaze was thoughtful, perhaps even greedy.

“Signal the Mother,” Mellinda decided suddenly, turning her attention to the Troll King. She would force the protector to fight. “Tell her to begin taking the prisoners at the shore.”

“Are you not supposed to wait for a signal?” The Troll King asked.

“No. We begin now.” There would be no chance that Aloysius could betray her now. Once the Mother started eating his people, there was no way the Protector would sign that treaty.

Xedrion’s mind was flooded with reports from the various commanders. Their counts of the troll people varied from eight hundred and fifty to eight hundred and eighty in number. He could destroy that number with a hail of arrows alone.

But that wasn’t his problem. Xedrion didn’t know how to respond to the ridiculousness of the gnome’s statement. Give him KhanzaRoo? And the Troll Queen? She was dead. How did the gnome not know that, given how well prepared he had been with everything else?

He was about to ask that question when another message came. This one from Jhonate’s ring.

Father! I just received a message from Edge! He was just approached by a servant of the Stranger’s. He says that Mellinda lives! Somehow she survived my attack and worse, she has the Rings of Stardeon.

Evidently Tolynn had received a similar message. “Could it be? That face. Xedrion, there is no way he could have known how to duplicate it.”

“You can truly deliver this?” he said numbly.

The gnome warlord chuckled. “Standing before you is the entirety of the trollkin race. They have been industriously cleaning and clearing KhanzaRoo for months now. As for the Troll Mother, Mellinda has her under control. Destroy the witch and the Mother loses its purpose. With the trollkin dead, the city can be yours. All you need do is sign.”

“And what if we do not?” Herlda asked. “Why do you gather our people that you have imprisoned near those beasts?”

The Stranger cleared his throat and Aloysius glanced back at him. Out of the corner of his eye, Xedrion saw the Stranger shake his head slowly. The gnome glared back at the man. He opened his mouth to speak, when a rumbling started.

There was a bulge in the marshes directly in front of the gathered prisoners. A sickly green mound rose from the water, then split open down the middle, revealing a gaping hole and multiple rows of sharp teeth. The prisoners started to scream.

“He means to feed our people to that thing!” Herlda gasped.

Aloysius’ eyes widened in surprise, but he quickly recovered. “Sign the treaty. I will order my imps to burn that thing and the rest of my army will help yours destroy those monsters!”

Long tentacle-like tongues with spiked ends rose from the gaping mouth and lashed out, grasping prisoners and dragging them screaming into the air. The prisoners rushed the guards, trying to fight free, but they were unarmed. The guards had orders to prevent escape if this should happen. People were dropped into the waiting mouth one-by-one.

“This is how you force my hand?” Xedrion shouted in outrage.

“I did not command this!” Aloysius said. He frantically signaled his men to pull the prisoners back. “It’s not too late! Sign and we fight it together.”

The ground rumbled again as another bulge rose from the marshes and another, all of them close to the prisoners. Great mouths opened and tentacles began pulling more people in. But they didn’t stop with the prisoners. One of Aloysius’ stewards was grasped. Then some of the Roo-Dan soldiers on the front lines.

“Never mind,” the gnome said. “We can settle this after the witch is destroyed!”

He signaled to his men and orders were issued. Streams of fire shot down from the imp forces. The mouths burst into flames as did the people caught in the tentacle’s grip.

Xedrion sent orders through his ring. Archers fired, a cloud of five thousand arrows all focused on the trollkin and Mellinda in particular. A shield of air caught most of the arrows, though some slipped through and trollkin cried out.

The thick mist reappeared, suddenly coalescing around the trollkin army, obscuring them from view. The mist spread, moving to fill the valley floor. The ground began to shake again.

Justan and his bonded arrived back at the valley to the sound of screams and the roar of battle cries. Arrows were thick in the air. He saw Mellinda raise her shield and the mist envelop the valley.

Jhonate! he called through the ring. Get out of there. Sound the retreat!

Father says to attack, she said, approval in her voice. He wants Mellinda dead.

Something is bad, said Gwyrtha. Under the ground.

“She is right,” said Deathclaw. “I feel it in my legs.”

Justan concentrated and he could feel it too. A low vibration. A horrible thought came to his mind. Jhonate listen, damn it! Tell your father to sound the retreat now! This is about to get a lot worse!

The vibrations increased. All along the slopes, on both sides of the valley, soldiers tumbled to the ground in heaps. A thousand bulges rose up in the middle of the armies. A thousand mouths opened up. Tentacles lashed out and the Troll Mother feasted.

The mist coalesced around the center platform and, though Xedrion could not see the horrible scene, he heard the screams. Reports came in a chaotic jumble. Three of the rings grew silent. Jhonate screamed for retreat.

Xedrion gave the order. Retreat now!

“We must go!” he announced and whirled on the gnome warlord. His staff formed into long blades. “What have you done? Was this your plan all along?”

“This is not my doing,” Aloysius replied with a snarl. “This is a betrayal!”

The platform lurched, causing its occupants to stumble. Then one end of it rose up at an angle. The table slid off of the platform, dragging Elder Qelvyn with it. The merman splashed into the fog-obscured marshes with a shout of alarm.

Herlda slipped to her backside, but both Xedrion and Tolynn kept to their feet and helped her up. A horrible screeching sound burst from the marshes and echoed along the valley slopes. Grasping tentacles reached in from the mist.

“Warlord Aloysius, grab my hand!” shouted Matthew. The Stranger had remained standing and reached out towards the gnome calmly. Much of the weariness had seemingly left his face.

Aloysius ignored him, producing a long knife from within his robes and striking out, lopping off the end of one of the tentacles. Boards creaked as the platform lurched again. The gnome ran for the ramp that led to the bank, but a wall of tentacles reared up in his way.

Xedrion and his friends were having the same problem. The escape routes were cut off. All three Jharro wielders handled themselves well. Xedrion’s staff spun, Herlda’s sword flashed, and parts of Tolynn’s armor formed into long blades that she used to great effect. They severed tentacles right and left, but more came.

Soldiers from both sides tried to come to their leaders’ aid, but were either cut off by tentacles or dragged into open mouths, screaming. Witch Sorell whipped about with her spear and tried to use her magic on the tentacles, but to little effect. A tentacle darted in and wrapped around her neck. Xedrion leapt towards her, but she was jerked out of reach. More tentacles grasped her and she was dragged into the mist.

“Grasp my hand, Warlord,” the Stranger said again. Tentacles waved all around, but none touched him. “You will get only one more chance.”

The gnome saw the invitation as a trap. “Is this your doing, Stranger?”

“No,” he said. “It is yours. Call me Matthew.”

“I am no fool!” Aloysius snapped. A spiked tentacle lashed out. He leapt back, but the spikes snagged his robes. It pulled, threatening to yank him off the platform, but he snarled and bent over, allowing it to pull the robes off over his head.

Underneath, he was wearing a full suit of armor. A black suit of fine gnomish chainmail covered him from shoulders to heels and a gleaming polished breastplate covered his chest and shoulders, while a similar pair of shining greaves covered his shins and knees.

“Your last chance, Warlord,” said Matthew.

A tentacle wrapped around Aloysius’ ankle. He slashed down at it with his knife, severing it, and another tentacle wrapped around his wrist.

The Stranger took a step towards the gnome and held out his hand. Tentacles contorted to avoid him. “Does your legacy end here? Will cunning and deviousness and political maneuvering be all you are remembered for? Take my hand and let me guide you.”

Aloysius pulled another knife from a sheath hidden under his breastplate and sliced the tentacle that grasped his other hand. Snarling, he reached out and grasped the Stranger’s hand. “Save me from this place. That is an order!”

Matthew smiled. “Very well, Warlord. Do not let go.” He pulled the gnome towards the edge of the platform and the tentacles parted before him.

“Matthew!” shouted Xedrion. “You would leave us here?”

“I am sorry,” said the Stranger. “He is my responsibility.”

Matthew stepped off of the platform and the open mouth under his foot closed allowing him safe passage into the mist.

The retreat of the Roo-Tan army was well-organized, but not easy to accomplish. Every time a new escape route was found, only a few men would get through before another mouth opened up to block the path. All along the slope, men were fighting to escape while tentacles dragged them towards toothy mouths.

The warriors helped each other as best they could, slicing tentacles and wounding mouths, but those were only temporary solutions. The Mother closed wounds almost as soon as they were opened and tentacles were easily re-formed. Just as many men were devoured as were saved.

Justan stayed mounted on Gwyrtha, patrolling the edge of the valley, shouting out instructions. Gwyrtha was extremely helpful, often sensing changes about to happen underground before they happened. The upper slopes were soon cleared of troops, but those in the lower part of the bowl were still being massacred. Jhonate and her brothers and sisters were down there with them.

To Justan’s frustration, she was ignoring his calls to escape. She and her siblings were focused only on the protector’s rescue. Justan didn’t see how they were going to do it without help. The platform was ringed with hungry mouths and obscured by mist. It was all they could do to keep from being eaten themselves.

Deathclaw? Are you sure your sword can’t help?

Perhaps, Deathclaw replied. But I would have to get to them and then I would have to hope that fire did not block our escape.

The raptoid was a short distance away, leading a small group of men to the safety of the trees. The moment the Troll Mother’s attack had begun, the blade of Deathclaw’s sword had blazed to life. He was using it to spectacular effect. Every mouth or tentacle he touched exploded in flames.

Despite the fact that his actions had saved many men, the fire caused its own problem as it spread across the grass, fed by the slime the Troll Mother’s grasping tongues left behind. The mouths of the mother that weren’t directly touched by the sword, didn’t seem to mind the flames. They continued to send out grasping tongues, simply setting the men on fire as they dragged in and swallowed.

We may have to try it anyway, Justan said. But maybe not. Come join me.

He saw Tarah Woodblade and her friends gathered together a safe distance from the valley’s edge and galloped their way. “Tarah!” He slid out of the saddle and landed in front of her. “Jhonate is down there, as is Xedrion and Tolynn. Is there anything Esmine can do to help?”

Tarah shrugged helplessly. “She can make illusions.”

“She can sense things. Can she see where the mouths are about to appear before they hit?” he asked.

“She says that she can’t see into the earth. It’s too dense.” She frowned. “Maybe she could distract some of the mouths, but I don’t know that they can see.”

“Theodore thinks that the Troll Mother is using vibrations and pressure to know where to strike,” Willum said.

Djeri nodded, gazing down the valley with his hawk-like eyes. “I think he’s right. There’s no other pattern to the attacks. It just happens when people are moving. Look at Cletus.”

For the first time, Justan noticed that the gnome warrior wasn’t standing with the rest of them. He was racing along the slope, leaping over open mouths, his chain whipping around him, the long blade attached to the end lopping off tentacles. The Troll Mother seemed just a step behind, lashing out with tentacles or opening mouths after he passed.

“The fool!” Deathclaw hissed. “He will get himself eaten.”

“He’s helping people,” Djeri said, nodding as the gnome cleaved a tongue that had was wrapped around a soldier’s leg. “He wouldn’t listen if we said to hang back.”

Justan thought furiously. “Can Esmine make vibrations or hide vibrations?”

“Maybe . . ,” Tarah said, thinking it over.

“I dunno,” said Esmine, suddenly appearing to speak for herself. The elf child was rubbing her little chin with one hand. “I’m not too good at making people feel things. I can make good noises, though. Watch.”

Fifty yards down the slope in a spot empty of mouths, three identical versions of Esmine’s child appeared. At once, they started screaming and stomping their feet. The Troll Mother’s response was immediate. A mouth opened up underneath them and the three children yelped as they fell inside.

“It works,” Esmine said.

“Good! Do what you can,” Tarah said.

All across the slopes, small elf children suddenly appeared wherever men were struggling. They shouted and stomped their feet to distract the mother, and sometimes it worked. Still, it wasn’t enough. Xedrion and Tolynn could not break free.

A plan formed in Justan’s mind. “Bear with me a moment. I need to talk to Artemus.”

The wizard had been speaking so calmly to him before this had started. But since the meeting with Talon, Artemus hadn’t responded to his requests. He closed his eyes, focusing through the bond. The blockage that led to the wizard’s sanctum was no longer as solidly blocked as it had been in the past. The opening, once as small as a peep hole was large enough that Justan could reach through it if needed.

For now he just pressed his thoughts close to it and yelled, Artemus, I need you!

A chill breeze blew through the opening. Now . . . is not a good time, said his voice weakly. Then the harsher voice of the Scralag interrupted. FREEZE THEM. CRUNCH THE BONES! There is something vast and powerful nearby. The elemental is FREEZE . . . is surging to the surface.”

I need your help! Justan sent a surge of thoughts and memories through the bond, showing Artemus what had transpired. Jhonate is down there. She is surrounded and I have to save her. You need to wrest control and help me now!

Artemus’ face appeared at the opening. I can lend you power, but it will be limited. If I pull too hard, the elemental will break free.

What I need you to do is freeze the ground, Justan explained. I need a safe path down to the center of the valley.

It is too far. I can . . . he grimaced. Freeze the ground in a radius around you. Perhaps fifty yards. No more.

Can you keep it up while I travel down there? Justan begged.

I shall do all I can, he wheezed. Now go.

“Alright,” Justan said, opening his eyes. “I’m heading down there. He’ll freeze the ground around me as I go, preventing her attacks. I’ll need Esmine to create distractions elsewhere, draw the Troll Mother’s attention.”

“Let us go, then,” Deathclaw said.

“I’ll come, too,” said Tarah. “Tolynn is tiring down there.”

“See if Esmine can be any help until we can reach them,” Justan suggested.

Esmine popped into view. “Doing it!” she said, then disappeared.

“We have another problem,” Djeri said pointing to the valley floor. “The fog’s climbing.”

The mist roiled and moved slowly up the valley banks, obscuring battling groups of soldiers from view.

Justan grimaced. “I wish Vannya was here to help.”

The mage had stayed behind to continue her studies. Hilt and Beth had stayed as well, but for different reasons. Xedrion didn’t want him going to war until he had recovered more use of his maimed hand.

“Uh . . . Theodore has a suggestion,” Willum said reluctantly. “I normally wouldn’t bring it up, but . . .”

“What?” Justan said. “Come on, we need to move!”

“Gwyrtha’s blood,” Willum said. “It wouldn’t take much to give him the charge needed. Once we got down there, he could cancel out the spell and blow the mist out.”

Do it, Gwyrtha said. She turned her head and bit a deep gash into her shoulder. I have lots.

“Hurry up,” Justan said.

Willum held the axe against the wound and as her blood flowed over the blade, the runes glowed greedily. The imp’s response was audible to all those standing nearby. “Ohhhhhh yeeeeaaaah.”

“Enough,” Justan said, giving him only a few seconds before healing the wound. He reached out to Artemus. Now.

At that command, Justan felt a flash of pain in his chest. A shudder passed through him. Frost gathered on the front of his shirt.

A series of cracking sounds issued from the ground beneath his feet and a layer of frost formed on the grass around him. It radiated from him in a wide circle. He felt a wave of weakness, but pulled more energy from Gwyrtha. The axe had drained her reserves by about half, but she was ready to go.

Justan leapt into her saddle and started off, everyone else following close behind him. Jhonate, I’m coming. We’re clearing a path to get you out of there.

Hurry, she said and her tiredness was obvious through the ring. We can barely see down here and we cannot get through to father.

Justan’s immediate urge was speed to the bottom at a full gallop, but that wasn’t possible. The frost wouldn’t radiate out fast enough to keep up. He was forced to go at a medium trot, his friends jogging to keep up, their feet crunching in the brittle frozen grass.

The experience was surreal. Everywhere else, men were fighting and screaming, but the land around Justan and his friends was frozen in a grotesque tableau. They jogged over and around frozen mouths and immobilized tongues.

The Troll Mother raged at the effectiveness of it. All along the perimeter of the frost, mouths opened and reached. Tongues elongated, but Justan’s friends made short work of any that came too close.

Cletus saw their descent and ran over to them. He slid across the frozen grass to Tarah’s side. “Hey! Where you goin’, Pretty Tarah?” he said breathlessly, a wide smile on his face despite the horrors surrounding them.

“We’re attempting a rescue,” Tarah replied. “The protector is stuck down there at the bottom.”

Cletus blinked and peered down at the bottom. “Oh! I see!” he said. He took a running leap and swung off of a frozen tongue that arced high overhead, then raced down the slope, dodging mouths as he went.

“How is he not dead already?” Deathclaw wondered. He swung his sword in a wide arc and the white hot blade set several grasping tongues aflame.

Djeri shook his head, the long blade of the Ramsetter ready in his hands. “You can’t explain Cletus.”

Xedrion fought on.

The tongues of the Troll Mother were relentless. The severed ends of tentacles had become their own obstacles, writhing and flopping and making the platform slippery. Herlda had fallen a few times. She was always quick back to her feet, but he worried that she was slowing down. They all were, in fact. Each of them had minor cuts and scrapes from the spikes on the tongues and none of them were in the prime of youth anymore.

Xedrion began to feel the creeping suspicion that this was the moment he had dreaded for over a decade. This would be the day his age caught up. This would be the day that his skill failed him.

He wondered what would happen if he was sucked into one of those mouths. Would it be a quick death, then a sudden rebirth as one of those things? Or would it be a painful prolonged experience as his body was taken apart and broken down and recombined. Would he be awake as his memories were stripped away? Would he realize what was happening to him?

Nevertheless, he continued to fight. It wasn’t a question he was eager to find the answer to. He was so focused on the tentacles around him that he almost didn’t hear Jhonate’s cry through the ring.

Jhexin!

Xedrion knew then that he had lost a son. That wasn’t supposed to happen. He had already lost his first born. He wasn’t ready for another. And his foolish children were still close by, trying to get to him.

Jhonate, go! All of you! He demanded. He was so distracted that he didn’t see it when it happened.

“Xedrion!” cried Tolynn.

He turned just in time to see Herlda’s wide and pleading eyes as she was pulled into the mist. “No!” He ran for her, slicing as he went, but she was gone.

Jhonate cried out again. Fleen’s gone!

A numbness swept over him. He had failed them. Xedrion swung his staff a few more times, keeping the tentacles at bay, but the strength had left his limbs. He let his staff droop.

“What are you doing?” Tolynn snapped, jumping in front of him and lopping off the tip of a tentacle that had come inches from his head. She delivered a stinging backhand across his face. “Mourn later! Let anger fuel you.”

He snarled and slashed out at another tentacle. Easy for her to say. She had lost so many in battle over the centuries.

“Duck your heads!” shouted an unfamiliar voice and the tentacles blocking the ramp across the marshes briefly parted as a narrow body passed through.

Xedrion and Tolynn crouched down low as the odd gnome friend of Tarah Woodblade’s landed in the midst of them. He crouched beside Xedrion and spun his chain weapon in a wide arc over his head. Cletus built his weapon’s momentum, picking up a blistering speed and slicing apart any tentacle that came within the weapon’s range.

“Hey, can I save you guys?” he asked, blinking at them innocently.

Xedrion simply stared back at him in shock. Where had the gnome come from?

Tolynn recovered faster. “We will accept any help you can give us.”

“Okay, Pretty Elf. I like your bald head,” he said, smiling at her. Cletus stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth and watched the movements of the mouths at the edge of the platform. “When I say go, run fast like a bunny rabbit and jump. There’s boards on the other side.”

They nodded and he grinned, his eyes darting back and forth as he timed his move. “Go!”

With one last great loop of his chain, he darted forward and slashed at a downward angle, cutting off the blocking tentacles at the base. Tolynn jumped first, Xedrion right behind her, and ran up the partially broken ramp that led to the base of the slope.

Jhonate was there just ahead, only partly obscured by the mist. As were her brothers Qurl and Sen. They were fighting alongside what was left of Xedrion’s personal guard. Their sisters had followed orders and left with the rest of the army. They were surrounded by open grasping mouths, but worked in concert, keeping the Troll Mother’s tongues at bay.

Xedrion glanced back to see if Cletus had followed them, but the gnome was still on the platform, the tentacles closing in. The wood groaned and with a sudden lurch, the platform rose into the air. Something huge had bulged up beneath it. The platform crashed to the side and the gnome disappeared from view, thrown into the mist.

A great mound rose from the center of the marsh where the platform had been. A series of eyes formed in the side of it.

Xedrion did not want to stay and find out what it would become. He ran to his children’s aid, Tolynn at his side. They arrived just as the sound of a great bell echoed along the valley slope.

A mighty gust of wind struck Xedrion, nearly knocking him over. The mist was blown away. Xedrion saw the horror of the valley slope before him. Where there had once been twenty thousand proud Roo-Tan warriors now sat a minefield of countless mouths and grasping tongues.

The slope was mostly cleared of men, but coming straight toward him was Sir Edge astride his rogue horse surrounded by his bonded and comrades. The ground around him froze as he rode, presenting a clear path to escape.

“You had to bring back the bell, did you?” Djeri asked Willum. The imp had used it all through the war any time Willum had used its power. It was only towards the end that he had got the imp to stop.

“Theodore is in a good mood,” Willum grumbled and said in a mocking impersonation of the imp. “‘Ho-Ho, Willy! Let’s do it again. More rogue horse blood!’”

“He calls you Willy?” Djeri asked.

The imp’s massive spell hit the thick fog like a wave, blasting it up into the air and dispersing it. There was no sign of Mellinda or the trollkin army. Only the Troll Mother remained and she was angry.

Where the center platform had once stood was now an enormous mound of troll flesh. Eyes had sprouted all over it and great long tentacles were growing from the sides, stretching outwards like long curving arms. Djeri shook his head. He did not want to get any closer to that.

But that’s where they were headed. Xedrion and Jhonate were not far from it, battling a ring of grasping mouths. Sir Edge pressed forward. As they approached, the mouths surrounding Jhonate and her siblings froze solid. The line of frost reached the edge of the marsh and stopped.

“We’ve got to go now!” Edge shouted. “Artemus is spent!”

The named warrior jumped down from Gwyrtha’s saddle and ran to Jhonate, who seemed ready to collapse with exhaustion. He clutched her to him briefly, then turned to her father.

“Protector,” Edge said. “Get on Gwyrtha and take Jhonate with you. Ride to the top. We’ll be right behind you.”

“Wonderful,” said Tarah from beside him. “They ride. We get the death march.”

“They’ve been fighting long and hard,” he reminded her. “We’re the rescue squad.”

“I know,” she said with a frown. “Doesn’t mean I can’t complain about it.”

Xedrion didn’t hesitate. He jumped into the rogue horse’s saddle and reached down for his daughter. Jhonate protested, but her father and Edge pushed her up in front of him.

“I’ll take Tolynn as well,” Xedrion said. The elf leapt nimbly up behind him and Gwyrtha galloped away, up the swiftly defrosting path.

It wouldn’t be so easy for the rest of them. A horrible screech echoed along the valley as a vertical mouth split the side of the mound. The enormous tentacles began curling inwards, closing off their escape.

The party ran, keeping to the center of the frozen path as best as they could. Mouths and tongues reached from either side and the great arms reached ever closer. They were ten feet high and covered in tiny spikes.

It looked like they would all make it past the tentacles’ reach, but Djeri’s shorter legs made it hard for the dwarf to keep up. He pulled off his helmet and held it in his free hand so that he could breathe easier.

Tarah kept pace with him shouting, “Move it, Djeri! This is why wearing full plate armor’s stupid! What happens when you have to run?”

“I’m just as fast in the armor as out!” he snapped back. Which was true for the most part. But those arms were closing fast and being a few pounds lighter sure wouldn’t have hurt. All the layers of steel in the world wouldn’t protect him against getting swallowed.

These were his thoughts as the tentacle wrapped around his midsection, binding his sword arm to his side and jerking him to a halt. His sword clattered to the ground.

“Djeri!” Tarah shouted in horror as the dwarf was yanked backwards towards one of the waiting mouths on the side of the trail. She ran after him, smacking the tentacle ineffectively with her staff. Several tiny Esmine’s appeared, slashing at the tentacle that dragged him, but they had no effect. “Someone cut him free!”

She glanced back and saw Willum and Edge’s panicked expressions just as the arms of the Troll mother closed behind them, cutting off Tarah’s escape.

“Tarah, my sword!” Djeri shouted.

She turned and saw the Ramsetter lying on the ground. Tarah slid her staff through the loops on the back of her armor as she ran and picked the sword up off the ground. She turned back. The dwarf was bucking and straining and dragging his feet, pounding the tentacle with his free hand, but it was no use.

“I’m trying!” Esmine cried, continuing to saw at the tentacle, pouring every ounce of her power she had into it, but there was no physical effect. “I’m trying, Tarah! I promise!”

“No!” She arrived just as he reached the grasping mouth. Tarah swung the sword, partially severing the tentacle, but it was too late. It was dragging him in.

“Run, Tarah!” Djeri said and she caught one last glance of his green eyes before his head disappeared from view.

She dropped the sword and grabbed his leg, straining against the tentacle’s pull. She slowed it down, but still he slid inside. The teeth made a horrible scraping sound against the polished steel of his magic armor.

He inched further in. Screaming in denial, she straddled the mouth, pulling with all she had. Tears streamed down her face as the teeth closed again, this time inches from her hands. Still she refused to let go. “Help! Somebody help!”

Strong hands grasped her around the waist and pulled. Her hands slipped free and Djeri’s leg was sucked inside. “Djeri!” she screamed.

“I’m sorry, Pretty Tarah,” Cletus said sadly, from behind her. She turned in a fury, swinging a fist. The gnome ducked under it and threw her over his shoulder. “Gotta go!”

He ran. Tarah flopped along numbly, her eyes latched onto Djeri’s helmet. It lay proud and shiny and empty on the ground next to the Ramsetter. Tarah half expected Djeri to walk over and pick them up. But that didn’t happen.

Both the helmet and her father’s sword were quickly obscured by a moving wall of troll flesh. For the first time she noticed that the long arms of the Troll Mother had curled further inward. She and Cletus were being herded inexorably towards the behemoth’s waiting maw.

Cletus ran and the arm closed. Tarah saw it sweeping closer. There was no way he would outrun that. Not with her added weight.

“Cletus. Put me down,” she said. “I mean it.”

“Nope,” he said.

“That’s right. Keep running, Cletus,” said Esmine, running behind him, looking right at Tarah. “Help’s coming.”

The arm sweeping in behind them exploded. Fragments of troll flesh littered the ground around them, striking Tarah and Cletus both with painful effect. The gnome yelped and stumbled, but somehow kept his feet.

Gwyrtha burst through the gaping hole where the tentacle had been. Sir Edge was leaning forward in her saddle his right sword outstretched. He let out a smile of relief as he saw Cletus standing there with Tarah on his shoulder.

“Jump on!” Edge said as the rogue horse sidled up to him. “It’s not going to be an easy ride back to the top!”

Epilogue

The Troll King stepped to the side of the procession, letting his people march triumphantly by. He should have been elated, but for some reason, he felt sick to his stomach.

It had all gone according to the Troll Mother’s plan. Half of the Roo-Tan forces and more than two thirds of the Mer-Dan forces and their demon allies had been consumed. They were now within the Mother’s immense body being divided and processed, their souls and tissues stored and ready to be reattached and rebuilt.

Mellinda had been furious at first. She had expected the Mother to eat the prisoners only. She had been horrified as the Mother began to feast and her plan fell apart. The king had felt some satisfaction at that point, but her fury had quickly turned to calculation. Then a wicked smile had spread across her face and his spirits had fell.

After that, the fog had obscured them once again and all he could hear were the horrified screams of Roo-Tan men and women. Human lives ending in pain and terror. Of course he had told himself that they weren’t really ending.

Sometime within the next two weeks or so, the mother’s womb would open and they would begin to spill forth. They would be born anew, their past suffering forgotten. They would love the Mother and they would love their king. The trollkin would go from a race of less than a thousand, to a nation nearly thirty thousand strong. They would be a people to be respected. A people to be feared.

So why wasn’t he happy?

The king walked deeper into the swamp away from his people. He wished to be alone, though he didn’t understand why. Of course he wasn’t truly alone. He never was in the Troll Swamps. He could feel the chemical messages of the Mother in the water that sloshed around his feet. She was happy, content in her harvest. But he knew that wouldn’t last. The Mother would hunger again and soon.

The king knew her goal. It wasn’t enough to fill KhanzaRoo and the surrounding swamps with her new children. She would continue to grow. She would expand the swamps, taking over more and more land. She would swallow and she would conquer.

Lately a new goal had entered her thoughts. She had something else to hunger over but she would not share it. For her to hold something back from him made the Troll King uneasy.

The king’s wanderings took him to a section of the swamps he had not been in before. It smelled of rust and rotting leather. This sparked his curiosity and he sought out the source of the smell.

Then he saw it. Piles and piles of metal and wood and treated leather goods scattered across a long stretch of shallow water. This was the Mother’s refuse pile. All the things she couldn’t or didn’t want to digest ended up here.

As he watched, a mound of the Mother’s flesh rose up and disgorged a new pile of shiny treasures. Swords and axes, some of demon make. He picked up a polished breastplate with a red letter F in the center, then cast it aside.

The Troll King explored the place further, finding wagon wheels, farm implements. There was so much of use. He wished he had known about this place sooner. How much easier would these tools and weapons make his people’s lives? He smiled and sent out a chemical signal, thanking the Mother for bringing him here. She didn’t respond, too busy digesting.

Then he saw something that sparked his curiosity. Not far from him was a pile of gray wooden weapons. He recognized them as Jharro wood. These were the types of weapons the Roo-Tan warriors that he had seen today had wielded.

He felt a sudden compulsion to search through that pile. Without knowing why, he started sorting through it. He picked up the weapons on top and spun them in his fingers, but they didn’t feel right. He put them aside and went through the pile further.

Under the weapons were cloth garments and belts. He pulled them out of the way, then more gray wood weapons. Those weren’t it either. There was something further in the pile. Something that tugged on him.

Then his hand gripped something warm. The feel of it excited him. It was pinned under more junk. He threw it all aside and frowned. The thing he had touched had been another piece of Jharro wood like the others. This one was a staff. He grabbed it again. It was warm to the touch.

He lifted it out and saw another piece of wood sticking out of the bottom of the pile. It was also warm to the touch. He pulled it free. It was a Jharro bow, unstrung. For some reason holding these items made him smile. It was as if they were greeting him somehow.

He peered at them closer. The bow had a few tiny engravings in it. The staff though, was almost completely smooth and featureless but for one line. He ran the tip of one claw down that line and shook his head. He knew that line well. How many years had he worked to smooth out that last line of engraving on his staff?

The Troll King froze at the memory. He understood. These weapons had once belonged to him. He had wielded them before the Mother had birthed him. Along with that realization came another memory. It was one he had purposefully suppressed. It was his name.

He frowned. The king didn’t need a name. Did he? His other subjects had a name. Why did this one seem so dangerous? He licked his lips and said it out loud.

“I am Xeldryn bin Leeths.”

*                      *                      *

“They’re here,” said Esmine’s child-like figure, giving Beth a pleading look before vanishing.

“Hilt! They’re back!” Beth said and rushed to the door, Sherl-Ann in her arms. She opened it just before Tolynn knocked. The elf woman’s face was grave. “Have you heard, Listener Beth?”

“Esmine was just here. She didn’t tell me much, though. I’m glad to see that you are okay,” Beth replied and her eyes moved beyond the elf to the woman standing behind her.

Tarah Woodblade looked drained and weary, her eyes red-rimmed, but empty of emotion. Beth handed the child wordlessly to Tolynn and reached out her arms to Tarah. The woman’s lip trembled and she took a hesitant step forward. Then sobs took her and she fell into Beth’s arms.

“Shh,” Beth said gently. She stroked her hair and Tarah clenched her tighter. Beth opened herself up and Tarah’s emotions flooded through her. Beth saw the pain, saw the horror of what had happened and saw burning most brightly the disappearing eyes of Tarah’s love into that awful maw. “Oh, you poor thing.”

“Tolynn,” Hilt said, appearing from the bedroom in the back of the house, still bucking his sword belt. He found fine motor skills difficult with his maimed left hand, so he forced himself to do everything with it. He was determined to retrain his muscles and overcome the disability and Beth was confident that he would succeed. His face was grim. “Who did we lose?”

“Herlda, Jhexin, Fleen,” the elf said. Sherl-Ann cooed questioningly and patted her dark face. She brought the child in close and kissed its forehead. “Countless others. Xedrion lost half his forces. The list is still being put together.”

Hilt nodded grimly, his eyes moving to Tarah. “Djeri?” he asked.

Tolynn shook her head slowly. “Also, there was one other that Sir Edge mentioned. One of the Battle Academy children that you brought with you. Son of Lance?”

“Aldie,” he said. “Poor kid. What an awful day. I’m heading up to the palace. You going to the grove?”

“No,” she said. “I will accompany you. I just wanted to bring Tarah here.”

“I see,” Hilt replied. He placed a hand on Tarah’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. Beth?”

“I know. You’ll be home when you can. I will likely join you at the palace anyway. Xedrion’s family may need me.”

Tolynn held out Sherl-Ann and Beth accepted her awkwardly with one arm. The two of them left and Beth kissed the top of Tarah’s head. The poor girl had lost her mother so young. Beth supposed she could be that for her for a while.

“Come, dear,” she said, walking Tarah to the side of the room and the cushioned wicker bench that stood there. “Sit with me.”

Tarah cleared her throat and tried to compose herself as she sat down. “I’m sorry Beth. Tarah Woodblade doesn’t weep.”

“Nonsense,” Beth said and placed Sherl-Ann in Tarah’s arms. A baby always helped and Sherl-Ann knew what to do. She was a very perceptive little one.

“Did you listen? Did you see?” Tarah asked, accepting the child reluctantly.

“I did, child,” she said. “A horrible horrible day.”

Sherl-Ann saw the grief well up in Tarah’s eyes once more and patted her face with concern. “Rah? Rah?”

Tarah kissed the child and pulled her in tight, then looked up at Beth, the edge of her sorrow briefly lessened. “He’s gone, Beth.”

“Oh, Tarah. No he isn’t.” she said, reaching out to stroke Tarah’s hair again.

Tarah pulled back. “How can you say that?”

“That bond you share,” Beth said. She placed a finger on Tarah’s forehead, touching right between her eyes and focusing the woman’s spirit sight. Beth pointed to the soft silvery line that began atTarah’s chest and stretched to the south. “He still lives.”

*                      *                      *

Elise Muldroomon followed Nod through the thick jungle underbrush grumbling all the way. She followed the sneering and uncouth man because the dark voice made her, but after a month of travel, mostly by foot and not even on nice roads, she’d had enough.

The moment they reached a main road, she was heading out on her own no matter what pains the voice brought her. It would be worth it to sleep in a real bed, to take a bath in a real tub with soap and hot water and without Nod’s filthy eyes on her.

The man always insisted on that. He never touched her. The Dark Voice would not allow that. But he watched. And he talked. He said such horrible things. Oh how she longed to be rid of him.

“Where are we going?” she asked him once again.

Nod chuckled. “Like I said, I don’t rightly know. I go where the voice leads and I don’t know the thoughts of our master, now do I? All I know is he says head this way. So this way we goes, Queenie.”

“My name is Elise!” she snapped.

“Can’t rightly call you that though, can I. Not unless you want some unwanted ears to hear. Folks know the name Elise. They know you gone missing.”

“And ‘Queenie’ is somehow better?” she asked.

He laughed louder. “You got a good point there, Queenie. That you do. Tell you what, why don’t you finally come up with a new name for yerself, eh? Names is like clothes if you think about it. I mean, my name ain’t really Nod, now is it? It’s just the name I’m wearing now.”

“Ugh. This new name thing again?” she griped. Elise didn’t want a new name. She was proud of her old one. She was the rightful queen after all. Somehow it seemed in her mind that giving in to Nod’s suggestion and picking a new name would lessen her, perhaps even make the loss of her kingdom more of a reality. “No. I don’t think so.”

Nod ducked under a fallen tree trunk and smiled as he found a narrow path. “Very well, then. I shall pick one for you. How about Doris? That’s a fine name. Knew a whore named Doris.”

“Doris?” she snorted. “I don’t think so.”

“How about Sally. That’s a right fine name. I knew a woman named Sally. Half noble blood. Had bosoms the size of-. Oh!” He clapped his hand together. “Here we are.”

They had entered a wide clearing in the underbrush where it looked like a large group of people had camped recently. The trees had been cleared away and several small blackened spots showed where cook fires had been.

She could hear the rush of water. Perhaps there was a creek nearby that she could bathe in or even better . . . Elise gasped. “A waterfall!”

“That it is, Sally. That it is,” Nod said. “But this ain’t where we’re stoppin’. The voice says go inside.”

“Inside the waterfall?” she said dubiously.

“Look at the trail. It goes behind,” he said and climbed a path up the rocks.

Sure enough, the path did lead behind the waterfall where a rather plain, but solid-looking door stood. “A door under a waterfall?”

“And locked,” he said, trying the knob. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of lockpicks. “Well, good thing I’m me. Ain’t it, Sally?”

“I never agreed to Sally,” Elise said darkly.

He soon had the door open and they went inside. Nod palmed a light orb set into the wall and the room was illuminated. Elise let out a pleased sigh. It was quaint. Not up to royal standards, but well furnished.

She sat down in a plush chair that sat across from the fireplace and groaned. “Please tell me we are staying here for a while, Nod.”

“Sorry, Sally. That, we ain’t. We’re doing a little pilferin’ and then we’ll be on our way,” Nod licked his lips and started looking around. “Folks come home to a place like this anyways. No sense gettin’ ourselves caught. I’ve done my share of murderin’ in the master’s name, but it’s always to be avoided if possible.”

Elise whimpered. “At least let me take a short nap while you look.”

“Oh! Sorry again. Here we are.” The man reached under a workbench at the back of the room and pulled out a chest. He opened it with a small creak. “Hello hello. Ooh, so many pretty trinkets here. Ain’t allowed to touch most of ‘em though. Ah! Here it is!”

Elise looked over as he pulled out a small white orb, then shut the chest and carefully put it back where it was. “What is that?”

“Don’t rightly know, but I can tell you this, Sally. It’s an item of great power. The voice tells me so.”

He tossed it to her and Elise caught it by reflex. She looked closer at it and grimaced. It was a white moonrat eye. “Why does the Dark Prophet want this?”

“Don’t rightly know,” he said with a wink. “But I think it’s about time we brung it to him. Don’t you?”

The Bowl of Souls series will continue in

The Jharro Grove Saga: Book Five

Coming 2016

Also, keep an eye out for the first novel in a new series called, Noose Jumpers.

It is a fantasy western and book one is due out winter of 2015.

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Table of Contents

- Prologue
- Chapter One
- Chapter Two
- Chapter Three
- Chapter Four
- Chapter Five
- Chapter Six
- Chapter Seven
- Chapter Eight
- Chapter Nine
- Chapter Ten
- Chapter Eleven
- Chapter Twelve
- Chapter Thirteen
- Chapter Fourteen
- Chapter Fifteen
- Chapter Sixteen
- Chapter Seventeen
- Chapter Eighteen
- Chapter Nineteen
- Chapter Twenty
- Chapter Twenty One
- Chapter Twenty Two
- Chapter Twenty Three
- Chapter Twenty Four
- Chapter Twenty Five
- Chapter Twenty Six
- Epilogue