by Rinelle Grey
There were gasps from the young trolls watching them and several of them asked questions Kriss didn’t hear.
“What is it?” she asked Jasyn.
“We need to talk. In private.”
His voice was calm, and it struck fear into her heart. A fear that was mirrored in his eyes. His expression was for her alone.
He turned and bowed to the young warriors and said simply, “Excuse me, there is something we need to take care of.” Then he turned and walked away.
Kriss nodded to Lassa and headed after him.
As soon as the tent flap closed behind Jasyn, she repeated, “What is it?”
“Someone has the gem. A mage.”
“What! Who? I thought you said there weren’t any mages in the village?”
“I said I didn’t think the humans knew how to use their magic, not that none of them were mages,” Jasyn corrected. “But even an untrained mage can be dangerous against trolls who can’t use their magic. Our advantage is gone.”
“What are we going to do?”
Kriss wasn’t the sort to be asking others what to do. Usually, she’d be the one with a plan. But this was different. This was about magic. This couldn’t be solved by fighting. And though Jasyn had tried to teach her about magic, she hadn’t been as studious in learning it as he had been in training.
Jasyn looked lost. “I don’t know.”
Kriss wasn’t ready for this. She’d trained to fight the humans with a sword, and she was good at that, but if they had magic…
“We can’t sit here and do nothing.” She tried to keep the panic out of her voice, but from the expression on Jasyn’s face, she failed miserably.
He straightened his shoulders. “We need to deal with this now,” he said. “We need to get that other gem before they have a chance to learn how to use their magic.”
It made sense, but still, Kriss wasn't keen on the idea of walking into the human village and potentially having to fight magic with a sword. “What if they already know how, they just don’t?”
“We’ll be prepared for that,” Jasyn said stoutly. “I can go ahead magically, leaving my body behind. I could find the gem and test the humans’ magical ability. If, as we suspect, they don’t know how to use magic, they won’t even know I’m there. I can direct you so that you can take the gem without them even noticing.”
Kriss frowned. “How can you go there leaving your body behind?”
“I send only my consciousness and my magic. It’s hard to explain, but for a mage, it’s quite simple.”
It didn’t sound simple to Kriss. And if anything happened to Jasyn, she’d have to find a way to deal with humans and the magic by herself. “It’s not safe.”
“I’ll be completely safe,” Jasyn continued. “Only one person can use the gem at a time, the rest won’t have any idea I’m there. Without being hampered by my physical body, I can move far faster than any human. I can leave the village immediately if anyone notices me. You’re the one who’s going to be in danger.”
And if one of them was in danger, both were.
But what else could they do? The longer they left this problem unsolved, the more risk that the humans would be able to use the gem against them.
They needed to go now. “I’ll gather a team. How many?”
Jasyn hesitated. “I won’t risk losing too many trolls. If the humans can’t use the gem, taking it from them shouldn’t be hard. But if this goes wrong, it won’t matter how many of us there are. Half a dozen of your best warriors, maximum.”
Her nod was short and sharp. “We’ll be ready to go in ten minutes.” She paused and looked at him. “Be careful, Jasyn. Your magic doesn’t make you invincible. Remember that.”
Jasyn nodded soberly. “I will. You be careful, too. Hopefully everything will go smoothly and we’ll be able to go back to our normal lives soon.”
Kriss nodded soberly. She hoped so. Even if she didn’t really believe it.
In her heart, she was already preparing for the worst.
12
Reinforcements
Jasyn soared up and over the ridge effortlessly, leaving his body behind in his tent clutching the gem. Arriving at the human village had never been so easy.
Even though he’d never seen the village from this perspective before, it became immediately obvious that the humans were up to something. A wooden wall outlined the perimeter with archers on the towers and guards at the gates. Defences like that hadn't sprung up overnight.
All this time, the humans had been preparing, despite the fact that there hadn’t been a raid for two years.
That was concerning.
Jasyn adjusted his direction to fly in to search for the other gem. Even before he entered the gem’s field, he felt a tingle of magic close by. It wasn't someone using magic, this was different. Something was wrong. Squinting, he could see a barely perceptible flicker of magic. He reached out one ethereal hand towards the shimmer.
The magic stung his hand and he jerked back. The tips of his fingers felt like they were on fire and it took several moments for the pain to fade.
A shiver ran through him. Someone had erected some sort of magical barrier around the human village.
Only the fact that it flowed around the edge of the magical field and didn’t seem to be able to penetrate it stopped Jasyn heading straight back to camp to call off the raid. That fact meant that whoever had formed it probably wasn’t the one with the gem. They probably weren’t even in the village at all.
Jasyn glanced back towards the troll camp. Kriss and her warriors were travelling more slowly than he was. He had time to check the area, in case there was another mage somewhere nearby. He’d still be back in plenty of time to guide Kriss to the gem.
Keeping a careful eye on the shimmer of the barrier, Jasyn skirted around it.
When he reached the other side of the human village, the feeling of foreboding in his heart grew exponentially.
A huge encampment of tents spread out among the trees. There must have been nearly a hundred of the neat, white tents. Armed men rode horses and practiced with swords in the clearing. Jasyn hung back far enough not to be noticed, but close enough to detect that nearly every one of the men had magic.
Were they the source of the magic barrier around the village? Did one of them have the gem, or one of the villagers?
More importantly, what were they doing here? They seemed too casual to be planning an immediate attack, but what else could they be doing here?
One thing was certain, the situation had changed. Attacking the village without knowing what was going on was risky. They were no longer looking at fighting just the villagers; this was far bigger than that. This was a fight they quite possibly couldn’t win, and the trolls heading through the pass right now could spark a violent response against the camp. He needed to get back and stop Kriss, before it was too late.
Something new tugged at his magical senses. Not here, nor in the nearby village. It was further away.
Jasyn hesitated, but he might not have another chance. At the speed of thought, he lifted up over the trees and sped away from the village.
What he found filled his heart with trepidation. Another army moved towards the village at an astounding rate. At first Jasyn couldn’t figure out how they were moving so fast, but after observing them for a few moments, he realised they were shifting the ground under their feet with magic.
Reinforcements.
That’s what the army in the forest was waiting for.
A force this big was for more than the village. They were coming for the trolls, they had to be.
Jasyn turned and raced back to the village, flying up and over the barrier around the village, then down the other side to the pass. Hopefully Kriss and her warriors hadn’t made it far.
As he slipped into the pass, Jasyn felt a tingle of magic where there should have been none. The other gem. It was close.
He was torn. If they could grab it now, it could make all the diff
erence.
Ahead of him, Kriss rounded the last corner and raced towards the humans guarding the pass. A youth jumped on his horse and thundered away. The remaining men turned to face Kriss, snarls on their faces.
There were twice as many of them as before. Two of them wore different clothes, more refined. And they wore armour. They were from the army, not the village.
What if there were more mage warriors here, in the pass, with the gem?
He couldn’t risk Kriss’s life on that chance.
“No,” Jasyn shouted, trying to project his voice only to Kriss. “Turn around. Don’t attack!”
Time stood still as she ran towards the humans. He heard her battle cry, saw the sunlight glint off her sword.
“Kriss!” He wasn’t even sure if the sound left his mouth this time. Kriss looked around, then directly up at him.
“Turn back.” He waved frantically. “Stop the attack.”
Could she hear him? He wasn’t sure. But she stopped, holding up her hand. The warriors behind her halted. Then she backed up, slowly, not letting the humans out of her sight until she was around the corner.
Jasyn watched the humans in the pass as they stared at the retreating trolls, incredulity written on their white faces. It was rare that one faced such a certain death and had it withdrawn.
He should have pressed his advantage while he’d had it. Would the humans think the trolls were weak now? Would this spur them to attack? He remembered the army in the forest. An attack was coming, one way or another.
He turned and followed Kriss’s raiding party as they fled back to the troll camp. Flying ahead to re-join his body, Jasyn ran to meet Kriss and her warriors as they entered the camp.
“What happened?” Kriss demanded, as soon as she saw him.
“There’s a huge army outside the human village and more on the way. And they’re all mages. I’m pretty sure they are the ones who made us trolls in the first place. It has to be them, since we’ve felt no magic like this in all these years. And it looks like they are planning an attack. A big one,” he said.
A couple of the warriors drew their breath in sharply.
Kriss stared at him. “Now?”
Jasyn shook his head. “Not straight away. They’ll wait for the reinforcements to arrive. I felt the gem too, near the pass, so someone has it. I don’t think it’s the mages outside the village though, because their barrier is outside of the gem’s field. If the villagers are hiding the gem, then we might have a day, maybe two. But we can’t count on it.”
Kriss nodded. She dismissed the concerned warriors, who bowed and left.
Jasyn led the way back to their tent silently. What was there to say?
Kriss sat down at the table, not even bothering to remove her armour. “What do we do?”
Her voice sounded exhausted and hopeless. Exactly how he felt.
“What can we do? We have no hope of defeating them. They outnumber us five to one.”
“So what, we just let them come here and kill us?”
“Do you have a plan? We can’t run, there’s nowhere else to go.”
She knew it as well as he did. The land just grew more inhospitable the further from the ridge they went.
“We take the fight to them. The sooner the better. If they don’t have the gem, we still stand a chance. Magic could be our only advantage.”
“What if they do have the gem? There’s no way to know for sure.”
“Are our chances going to get any better if we sit here and wait?”
Jasyn sighed. “I don’t know.” He felt defeated already. He’d worked so hard and they’d built so much here. And now it was under far greater threat than ever.
He wasn’t any good at this champion thing. He wanted to run away and hide, to leave the responsibility to someone else. Trouble was, if he ran away, it all fell on Kriss. He couldn’t leave this all on her shoulders.
“Jasyn? Kriss?” Uma’s voice came from outside the tent.
Jasyn sighed and got to his feet. “Coming.”
He and Kriss stepped outside.
“Is it true?” Uma’s brow was furrowed. “Do the humans really have a huge army?”
The news had spread fast. Jasyn nodded tiredly. “It’s true.”
“What are you going to do?”
Why did everyone think he had the answers?
Oh, that’s right, because he was the champion.
“We don’t know yet,” Kriss said. “We’re still discussing it.”
Uma frowned. “What shall I tell the others? Everyone is fired up and ready to fight. Are we going to take this battle to the humans?”
Jasyn was surprised at the statement. Uma hated war as much as he did.
But sometimes there was no other option. Jasyn heaved a sigh. “Probably. Kriss and I are discussing the options. When we come to a decision, we’ll tell everyone ourselves.”
“We’ll find a way to keep the trolls safe,” Kriss assured him. “Tell everyone not to worry. It will be all right.”
She sounded so certain. Jasyn wished he could be as confident.
Uma’s tension eased. How nice it must be, to be able to trust in someone else to make the right decision. “I'll tell everyone. We’ll wait for your decision.” He turned and headed back to the centre of the camp.
“Do you really think we’ll manage to keep everyone safe?” Jasyn asked Kriss.
“They need to believe that.”
That wasn’t an answer. Or maybe it was.
She was as scared as he was.
But even scared, Kriss wasn’t ready to hide. “We need to fight them, Jasyn. I know you don’t like it. I don’t either. But there isn’t any other option.”
She spoke the truth. They were backed up against a wall and out of options. It was fight or die.
He nodded slowly. “I know.”
His reluctant agreement was enough for Kriss.
“Right. We need to take the biggest force we can this time—every troll able to hold a sword. And we need to go tonight, before the army has a chance to get their hands on that gem.”
Her words made sense, but he didn’t want them to. He wanted another way, a more certain way.
But there wasn’t one.
He stared off into the distance. “I suppose we should break the news.”
Kriss’s face was solemn. “Do you want me to do it?”
There she went, offering him the easy way out again. Jasyn shook his head. “No, I won’t leave you to shoulder this alone. We’re co-champions, we’ll do this together.”
She smiled and took his hand.
Somehow, Jasyn felt better, even though nothing had actually changed. They walked to the centre of the camp together.
Large numbers of trolls had already gathered there, chatting quietly in small groups. Everyone knew something was up.
Jasyn looked for Uma and Yass, only to find their concerned eyes on him. Everyone’s eyes were on him.
It was Kriss who spoke first. “This is a very serious time for us. Over the ridge, the humans have gathered an army. There can be no reason other than to attack us.”
“But we haven’t raided them in years,” someone spoke up. “Surely they can see we don’t want to live like that anymore?”
“They don’t care about that.” Kriss’s voice was firm. “We need to fight for what we believe in, to keep our families safe. There are no other options. Trolls won’t sit down and wait to die. We’re not like that.”
“You could have fooled me,” a voice spoke up from the back of the crowd. Jasyn didn’t have to see the sour face to know it was Mugos. “You’ve sat around doing nothing for two years and now the humans think we’re an easy target. And they’re right. The trolls are weak now and it’s all your fault.”
Jasyn didn’t want to admit that there was a little truth in his words. He had been so sure that his way was better than Mugos’s.
“We’re not weaker,” Uma spoke up, drawing himself to his full height and pointing a
finger at Mugos. “We’re stronger. For two years, warriors have been growing and training and not dying on raids. We’ve had a taste of peace, and we know that’s what we want.”
“Uma is right,” Bekinda echoed. “Before, we fought because there was no other option. Now, we’re choosing to fight because we believe in what we’ve built. We will fight to protect that.”
Even after he’d failed to protect them, they still believed in him and in his ideals.
The trolls wanted peace.
“We believe the humans have found the other gem, but we’re hoping that it's only the villagers, and they don’t know how to use it yet,” Kriss explained. “Jasyn and I are going over the ridge tonight, before they have a chance to work it out, or before the others get hold of it. Who’s with us?”
Bekinda’s hand shot up into the air, followed by several other staunch warriors. Other trolls began to raise their hands, one by one. Even Uma and Yass.
A chill ran through Jasyn’s body, causing the hair to rise on his arms. The trolls were prepared to fight for what they believed in, even those who disagreed with fighting on principle.
Sometimes, there was no other option, no other way out.
That was when a troll found out how strongly they believed.
The last of his reluctance faded away. When the trolls were prepared to stand up for what they believed in, how could they lose?
He raised his fist next to Kriss’s. “We’ll show them that the trolls won’t give up that easily.”
The crowd spoke as one, “Yes!”
Kriss smiled at him, then turned back to the trolls. “Prepare for battle!”
Everyone briskly returned to their homes to prepare, including Kriss and Jasyn.
As she put on her armour, Kriss discussed battle strategies. Jasyn wished he could contribute something, but he wasn’t a strategist. He could hold his own against a human, but that was where his skill ended. He nodded to Kriss’s suggestions until Bekinda arrived.
While they were discussing the plans, Jasyn slipped outside. He watched everyone getting ready. They talked quietly as they sharpened their swords. Children were being sent to Losi’s tent, as their parents prepared for war.