She trailed off. The sound of the name caused my chest to grow tight. But this was nothing like when Romil had said it to me, on the edges of that sellsword camp, or when I thought Maia had said it to me. This feeling was strange.
Because never, in all the early years I had spent in Tokana, had I ever dreamed that someone would be proud to name their child after me.
“It is a perfect name,” I managed to say. “I am sure it suits her beautifully. Better than it ever suited me.”
Ditra gave the first full, genuine smile I had seen since my return to Tokana. “It does, at that. I am going to send her with the rest of the refugees, and I must do it soon. But before she goes, would … would you like to meet her?”
I felt dangerously close to shattering, so I remained silent. But I nodded. Ditra rose and left the chamber. When she returned, she brought a little girl who could not be older than twelve. The girl’s eyes were wide and wonderstruck as she looked up at me.
It was like looking at a painting of myself at her age.
Ditra kept her hand on Vera’s shoulder, looking at me with obvious apprehension. I smiled and held out my hand.
“Hello,” I said. “I am Albern.”
Vera’s eyes went wide. She looked up at her mother, who nodded, and then back to me. “You are my uncle,” she said in a quiet voice, putting her hand in mine.
“I am.”
“Mother says I look just like you used to.”
Ditra’s hand clenched on her shoulder. “Vera—”
“It is all right,” I told her quietly, before smiling at Vera again. “Your mother could not be more right. I only wish we had more time to talk. But you have somewhere to go.”
Vera’s smile dampened, and her eyes filled with doubt as she looked up at Ditra. “I told her I did not want to leave.”
“Yet you must. Your mother is doing what is best for you.” I met Ditra’s eyes. “Parents always try to do that. Some of them fail. But not your mother.”
Vera frowned. But she took a hesitant step forwards, and then another, and then she hugged me about the waist. It startled me, and a long moment stretched before I thought to embrace her in return.
“I am glad I met you, at least,” said Vera quietly. “Might we talk more, when we return?”
“I hope so, child. In fact, I promise that we will.”
Kaita flew towards the northern edge of the city. Great swells of warm air rose before her from the flames of Kahaunga’s burning buildings, but she flapped anyway, powering her wing muscles with sheer fury.
Why in the dark below was Mag there? she raged in her mind. They were in prison. Both of them. Again, always again, she robs me of my victory.
At last she reached the city’s northern borders. The Shades had gathered there, only showing themselves after the trolls pressed deep into the city streets. Now they waited, unwary, for the fighting had moved far away. Kaita landed in their midst and shed her raven form, even as many Shades stepped away from her in alarm.
“Report,” she snarled, as soon as she had the mouth to speak the word.
Phelan, her captain, stepped forth, looking only slightly unnerved by her transformation. “We are ready to strike on your order, Comm—”
“Not my order,” snapped Kaita. “I will not be here to command you, and so I leave it to you. Take our forces to the western end of the city. The moment you see the trolls attack, join them at once. You know where to strike to put our numbers to best effect.”
“Yes, Commander,” said Phelan. “Our soldiers are prepared. We have brought ladders and—”
“I know what you have brought!” roared Kaita. “I created the plan, and it is almost complete. Tonight we wipe the family of Telfer from the face of the world. Now move!”
His face reddened, but Kaita had ceased paying attention. She stalked south, away from the camp. Before she had even finished passing through their ranks, her eyes glowed, and her form began to shift again. Shades cried out and dived aside as she suddenly grew gigantic. Grey, stone-solid skin swept across her, and her ears turned to giant flaps that swept out from her head.
In a moment the transformation was complete, and she had taken Gatak’s shape. She broke into a troll’s gallop, thundering out of sight of the Shades on all fours to vanish into the city. She had never taken her troll shape where the other Shades could see. If the trolls ever discovered her secret, the whole plan would come apart. But everything was nearing completion now. Even if there was a traitor among the Shades, they would not have enough time to tell the trolls before the battle would be over.
She began to spot trolls amid the wreckage of Kahaunga’s buildings. They were picking through the destruction, searching for food. The first time she spotted one, she stopped and bared her teeth at him.
“Come. We are readying for the attack. Dotag needs all the pack.”
The troll scowled at her, its ears rising. “He said we could rest and eat.”
“And now he needs us,” said Kaita. “You are of his pack. Come.”
She gathered every troll she could find as she went, until soon there were at least two dozen trailing along behind her, though none walked with quite her speed or purpose. She searched for the front lines of the gathered pack. There she would find Dotag. A pack leader had to lead. Dotag had been in the thick of the fighting when they had attacked the city, and he would be there again when they assaulted the Telfer stronghold.
At last she spotted him, in a large square towards the city’s western end. A great pile of produce and bread had been put before him, tributes from trolls in the pack who looked to curry favor. Dotag was picking at the pile, searching for the choicest morsels to eat first. He looked rather ragged—there was a tear in his left ear that had not been there that morning, and there were burn marks on his right flank. Kaita even saw some broken skin on his right shoulder. A very large building must have fallen on him for that to happen. Kaita ignored it and stalked up to him. Dotag noticed her at the last second, and his ears dipped in pleasure—but they flew sideways in alarm as Kaita pressed her face close to his.
“We have rested long enough.” She thrust a stubby finger up the long slope rising to the west. “The humans have gathered in their fortress. Now is the time to tear it down and kill them all.”
Dotag very nearly looked frightened of her. “We do not need to attack now,” he said. “They have run from their city. They know we have won.”
“We have to kill them!” roared Kaita. “They have broken the pact!”
“So have we,” came Apok’s voice.
Kaita snarled and turned. The younger troll stood at the edge of the square, her stony, angry gaze fixed on Dotag.
“I speak to Dotag,” snarled Kaita. “Not to you.”
“And you tell him that the humans broke the pact,” said Apok, stalking forwards. “Yet we have attacked their city. We have killed them. That, too, breaks the pact.”
“Only after they did it first.”
“What, then?” said Apok. “Do we kill more? They will bring their armies. They will bring oil and fire. Already today they killed many of us. The pack lost more trolls today than it did in all the years Chok led us.”
“Because more trolls follow Dotag than ever followed Chok,” said Kaita. “Dotag is a great leader.”
“He leads more of us, and he leads more of us to die,” said Apok. “The humans will drive us out of this city, and then they will drive us farther. Beyond the bounds of the pact. Even out of the mountains. Will you call that victory?”
Dotag looked more uncertain than ever. Kaita whirled on him. “The Telfers,” she said. “They are the ones who broke their word. Do whatever you want after they are dead. But you cannot allow them to live after breaking the pact. The Lord wishes them to be dealt with.”
“Trolls do not follow your human lord,” growled Apok, taking another step forwards. “Trolls fight for ourselves. We follow ourselves. I think you have left for so long that you have forgotten.”
Kaita could feel herself close to the breaking point. But if she attacked Apok, even Dotag would not be able to protect her from the other trolls in the pack.
The pack. Inwardly, Kaita grinned. Apok might speak against her, but she could not speak against Dotag without repercussions.
“I follow Dotag,” said Kaita. “He leads the pack, not I. Do you challenge him?”
Apok hesitated. It was a long, uncomfortable moment in the square before she spoke, but Kaita knew she had already won.
“No,” said Apok.
“Then be silent.” Kaita turned back to Dotag and lowered her voice. “We have the Telfers trapped. Apok is right about one thing. The humans will bring their armies. They will bring their fire. But if we kill the Telfers, no human will ever dare to break the bonds of the pact.”
Still Dotag did not look entirely convinced. He pawed at the pavement of the town square, eyeing the pile of bread and produce before him. “We have gone far enough for now. Many have died. More are hurt. We need to rest.”
“We need to kill them,” said Kaita, her voice rumbling with fury. “They will never leave these mountains until we throw them out. You lead this pack now. You must be strong. You must protect us from the humans. And you must do it now. The Lord will reward you for it.”
Dotag looked more reluctant than ever. But he tore his gaze away from the pile of food before him, looking up towards the western rim of the valley. At last he turned to the other trolls in the square.
“We attack.” Dotag tried to make his voice loud and commanding, but it rasped, weary from all his roaring during the battle earlier. “Gather the pack. We will destroy the humans’ home. We will rest when they are all dead.”
The trolls lumbered off to do his bidding. Dotag turned to Kaita, his expression full of doubt. But Kaita only smiled.
Maia’s body was burned in the center of the stronghold’s bailey with everyone in attendance. Ditra had Vera off to one side of her, and I stood to the other. When the flames began to subside, Ditra sent Vera away to join the rest of the refugees. With her went a dozen guards for protection. I could not help but think that a dozen more soldiers would be useful in the coming battle, but I said nothing. Ditra had to know it. But if we died, then Vera would be the last remnant of our line.
Not that it seemed to make much difference to Ditra’s soldiers. At first she asked for volunteers, but no one stepped forwards. I was shocked, until I realized the soldiers did not see the assignment as an honor—they saw it as fleeing from the fight. It astounded me, and I could not help but wonder if they would have been so eager to stay and die at their lord’s side if my mother had still been the Rangatira.
In the end, Ditra had to order a dozen of them to leave with Vera. The first tried to argue. She subsided when Ditra asked her if she thought Vera’s life was not worth saving—in which case Ditra would happily strip her of rank and send her out to face the trolls first. After that, she and the others went along quite meekly, if not exactly willingly.
Mag and I faced much the same resistance when we told Dryleaf to leave the city as well. The old man flatly refused until we threatened to tie him up and stick him in the back of a wagon. He could not help in a fight, and though his counsel was valuable, the time for advice was long past. We sent Oku with him. The hound trotted along at the heels of Dryleaf’s horse, looking back at Mag and I often. For once, he did not seem to understand what was going on, and it nearly broke my heart.
With Vera seen to, and all the other preparations at the stronghold underway, Ditra’s remaining rangers and I convinced her to rest. She retired to her chamber to sleep, but not before assigning a servant to find lodgings for Mag and me. “If I am being forced to sleep until the battle, then I will force you to do the same,” she said.
I was more than happy to obey. The battle in the city had not lasted long—certainly not as long for me as it had been for Ditra—but I was exhausted to the point of collapse. When they showed me to my bed, I paused only long enough to stow my bow and sword before I fell upon the mattress, fully clothed. I have some vague sense that Mag came into my room just before sleep claimed me. If she meant to talk, she left disappointed.
The blast of a horn woke me in an instant. I had slept for three hours, but it felt like no time at all. Groggy, I belted my sword on and slung my bow across my back, stumbling from the room to find Mag waiting for me.
“Did you sleep?” I said, my speech slurred with weariness.
“A bit,” she said. Her words were clear, and her eyes looked as sharp as ever. “Less than you, though yours looks to have done you less good.”
I waved her words away. “Leave off. Let us go to Ditra.”
We found her on the eastern wall, looking into the dale below. The night sky was dark above us, but the landscape was fairly well lit by the fires that still burned in the city, which reflected off the pall of black smoke hanging in the air. A chill wind blew hard into our faces, and I pulled my cloak tighter as I shivered. Ditra looked up at our approach and gave us a stiff nod.
“They are coming.”
I squinted down into the darkness. The burning city cast a tint across the world, so that everything was only visible in shades between black and crimson. But I saw no signs of movement down below, no indication of the trolls at all.
“Where?” I said.
“My scouts reported it,” said Ditra. “Rest assured, they will be here soon.”
“That prospect urges neither rest nor assurance.”
Mag laughed and clapped my shoulder, probably a bit harder than she had to. “Relax, Albern. I will be here to keep you safe.”
Despite herself, I saw a smile tugging at the corner of Ditra’s mouth. “Yes, see that you do, will you? I have waited for the fool to return home for quite some time. It would be a tragic shame to lose him now.”
“Like an old pet,” said Mag, brightening immediately.
“I am not—”
“Yes, exactly,” said Ditra, and now she could not stop the grin from spreading across her face.
I subsided, glowering into the darkness of the dale. But despite my objections, the smile on Ditra’s face was worth any amount of jibes aimed at me.
Her good mood faded as she returned to business. “You will want pitch arrows,” she told me. “There are many stored along the wall. Fill your quiver. There are torches and braziers, too, which you can use to light them.” She turned to Mag. “I take it from the spear in your hand that you are not much of an archer.”
“Not much of one, no,” said Mag.
“You will want oil, then,” said Ditra. “Your spear will be little help other than as a distraction. Carry a few flasks on your belt. If you can soak a troll with oil, that will let the archers take care of them. The flasks are stowed near the arrows.”
“As you say, Rangatira.” Mag bowed to her and went to fetch them. I stared at her retreating back, scowling. Finally I caught Ditra giving me an amused look, and I turned the scowl upon her.
“She keeps bowing to you.”
Ditra smirked. “She bowed to me when you all first arrived.”
“When she was trying to deceive you,” I said. “The last few times, it has been genuine.”
“I consider it a great honor to receive such courtesy from the Uncut Lady herself.”
Together we peered out into the darkness, searching for the first sign of our foes. “They are coming sooner than we thought. I had hoped they would rest.”
Ditra shrugged. “We did not think they would attack the city at all for at least another week. It is the Shades’ doing.” Her expression grew grim. “It is Kaita’s.”
“We must look for her in the battle,” I said. “If she falls …”
Ditra shook her head. “I have little hope that that will stop them. She may be spurring the trolls on, but she seems to be doing so from the rear. And even if we fell her, the trolls do not follow humans. They have been persuaded to make up their minds, and that will not cha
nge simply because one human dies on the battlefield.”
“It might make me feel better, at least,” I muttered.
She sighed, frowning down at her feet. “I suppose I agree.”
“Her actions were not your doing,” I said.
“I kept Maia from working with you, as he wished to do. I wanted to make it right with her somehow … after what Mother did, I mean.”
“That was a kind and just thing to do.”
“But not a wise thing to do,” she said.
“I doubt we would have found her even with Maia’s help. And I would not have trusted unsworn strangers from another land any more than you did.”
Ditra considered that for a moment, and then she shook herself. “Well, we can never repeat the past. There is only the present, and whatever future remains to us.”
“If we can hold until the king sends their army …”
“That is doubtful. We have never seen more than a dozen or so trolls at a time. We managed to kill a few in the city, but there are still nearly two hundreds of them, and I have scarcely twice that number of soldiers at my command.”
“But you have your walls,” I told her. “They were built to withstand trolls.”
“Nothing can withstand them forever.”
Something in her tone worried me. For a moment I forgot that she was the Lord Telfer, that she was, by rights, my Rangatira. For a moment I saw only my sister. I reached out and gently took her shoulder.
“Ditra. You cannot give up.”
She did not look at me. “I will not surrender to them, if that is what you mean.”
“I mean you cannot give up hope.”
“Hope,” she snorted. “I have been so ill acquainted with it for so many years that I no longer know what it looks like. And how am I to be reminded now, when the night is dark and an unstoppable foe lurks just beyond the doorstep? I am Lord Ditra of the family Telfer, Rangatira of Tokana. It looks as though we will be the last of Mother’s children to fall. If you had remained in Strapa, that might have left me with some small hope—the idea that you could return and take my place. But if one of us falls tonight, we both shall.”
The Tales of the Wanderer Volume One: A Book of Underrealm (The Underrealm Volumes 4) Page 54