Norian rubbed the stubble on his chin. “As long as your hair remains dark, your wins are by skill?”
“Yes.”
Norian smiled and they exchanged bows.
With little ado, they began practice. To Carrot's puzzlement, however, Norian refused yet to duel. He seemed to think that Carrot needed to relearn how to hold a sword.
“Both hands now – this is not one of those Roman toys!” he snapped.
If there was one thing that could exhaust Carrot as quickly as a baseline human, it was having to hold still. Especially having to hold still in a tense pose. Especially while Norian strutted about, scowling and critiquing.
“Why are you clutching so hard?” he demanded. “Think of it this way. The sword is like a bird. Clutch it too tightly – “
“You said to – “
“I know what I said. If you're to master this kind of blade, you must keep in mind more than one teaching at a time.”
“Whatever you've heard of me, I can only think one thing at a time!”
“Perhaps that is true. So you have to learn so well that you no longer have to think, but simply do.”
Carrot soon wondered what she had gotten herself into. Norian, though, seemed happy. After a few minutes of barking, he gave a satisfied nod. Carrot started to relax, but he shouted, “Stay in position! And while you're doing that, I'll be making a little trip.”
While Norian trotted off to the nearby brush, Carrot remained frozen in the pose of slashing at an imaginary enemy, glad that they weren't at Ravencall where an audience would have gaped. Then she became aware of Mirian perched on a rock as spectator to the lesson, calmly chewing a sandwich as contentedly as a cow with cud.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” Carrot asked.
“It's delicious. A preserve my sister makes.” Mirian lowered the sandwich and said quietly, “If you want to know, Carrot, your dancing a jig with him doesn't bother me. This is what bothers me.”
The sword wobbled in Carrot's grip. “You wish me not to practice with him?”
“Oh no, you must continue. Otherwise, he would sense I said something to you, and he would be angry. But you should know by now . . . as kind and gentle a man as Norian is, weapons and battle are the way to his heart. He fell in love with me when I won an archery tournament, but what is that compared to you? You don't know how empty I feel, when he talks about Carrot and catapults, Carrot and the Dark Forest.”
“I have no intentions toward him,” Carrot replied, “and he has treated me only with the affection due a sister. And Mirian, I'm sure a man like Norian does not marry a person merely for warrior skill. You must know that you mean something special to him.”
Mirian sighed. “Truth, Carrot, I sort of like you myself. But . . . don't give me desire to put an arrow through your throat. Or a knife through my own.”
Norian returned and barked, “Why did you move?” Then he had Carrot trace the Standard Alphabet letter 'S' in the air, over and over, faster and faster. He called her out whenever her hair flickered the least orange. Despite the annoyance, Carrot learned to concentrate. It was, she decided, good practice for self-control as well as swordsmanship.
“Now let's do some simple blade-crossing,” Norian said, unsheathing the other sword and adjusting his hold. “This is not a practice duel in any sense, for in a duel with these blades you'll be evading more than meeting them. Even so, this exercise is useful, for it will teach a sense for where the blade will contact your opponent's, and what the contact means.”
“I've touched blade to blade thousands of times,” Carrot said, keeping sharpness from her tone. “By now I know what the contact means!”
“You think you do, but you will come to think differently. As the Master said, in dueling you must learn that every stroke is unexpected, yet inevitable.”
He raised his sword point to her face, gestured for her to do the same toward him. Gently, slowly at first, their blades crossed. Carrot savored the sound: Zek . . . zek-zek . . . the clang of a Roman short sword seemed cloddish in comparison.
“This kind of sword is called a 'kedana,'” Norian said as their blades flashed and slid with increasing speed. “It's a name, the Master said, that comes from Aereoth, that the swordsmiths of Ne'arth appropriated. The Master often wondered if our kedanas are like the ones of the ancients, and how differently theirs were used. Do you think the Wizard might know of the ancient kedanas?”
“Yes,” Carrot gasped as she struggled to parry. “I'm – sure – he – would!”
She was mindful that she was the only one out of breath. Casually, while Norian spoke, his movements became faster and more aggressive. Keeping her hair 'un-oranged' (as Mirian termed it), Carrot was hopelessly outclassed by Norian's force, speed, and skill. She began to wonder if she could best him even if she had 'gone orange.' The strain of imposing self-control tired her all the more. Her primary tactic was to back-step with every thrust as Norian's tip threatened again and again to attain a position where it potentially could draw blood.
Zek, zek, zek! – it no longer sounded so pretty.
Suddenly, a look of puzzlement came over Norian's face. He lowered his sword and Carrot took a chance for a thrust, but Norian dodged without looking. He stared instead at a point behind Carrot. And then she caught the scent.
Keeping her blade raised, she turned.
A few dozen meters away, a human-like figure stood. There was no doubt that he was a troll, for he had a distinctive smell – human-like, Carrot thought, but with the additional fragrance of a sharp cheese. He wore a straw hat, cotton shirt and pants, all of which would have been normal peasant attire south of the Monstrous Hedge, save that his pants had suspender straps, necessary because he had the same waist-less, ovoid body shape as the subject in Matt's photograph.
He watched them, motionless, while Carrot and Norian held their swords and Mirian picked up her bow. After a moment, he walked toward them. He stopped a few meters away and stared blankly.
His approach was something of a relief, for in the distance it had not been possible to accurately judge his size, and Carrot's imagination had assumed gigantic proportions. Up close it was apparent he was short for a troll – indeed, no taller than Norian. He had no facial hair and his nose was no bigger than a mushroom. Add to that his wide-eyed expression, and Carrot knew he was only a child.
The boy troll looked at their swords and said in a surprisingly high-pitched voice, “Are you fighting?”
“Only practicing,” Carrot said. She sheathed her sword and glanced to the others. Norian and Mirian lowered their weapons. “Do you live around here?”
The troll boy pointed in the direction he'd come. “My home is there.”
“We'd like to visit,” Carrot said lightly and softly, as if to a human child.
“Okay.”
They entered the woods after him. Mirian whispered, “Carrot, that child alone outweighs the three of us, and this path is thick with the scent of adults. Are you certain this is safe?”
“We need to make contact with the people if we are to learn anything. I do not think this is a trap.”
“I would prefer certainty when our lives are at risk.”
Carrot remembered the days when she had been full of Certainty – that there were no monsters, Boxes were only a myth, and the Wizard was a deluded charlatan. She'd come to suspect Certainty whenever she met it. Or, as her father said when she'd confided that: Welcome to adulthood.
“I admit I am not certain. So be on guard.”
They emerged into a clearing that was surrounded by cottages. Even discounting for construction on a trollish scale, Carrot was impressed by the sturdiness and roominess of the troll domiciles. The homes had smooth walls of bleached plaster inset with spacious pattern-curtained windows made of glass with flower planters underneath. Brick chimneys protruded through shingled roofs. Carrot glanced at her traveling companions, who had dwelt most of their lives in villages of mud-packed huts like herself. They were just
as impressed.
The troll boy pointed. “That's my house. That's my mother in the window. She's baking a pie.”
The door swung open and the woman approached briskly. She wore a simple dress and an apron, and her hair was in a bun. She looked like an ordinary matron, save that she was two and a half meters tall and the flour-coated knife in her grip was a match for a short sword.
“Mama!” the boy exclaimed. “I found little people!”
“Come inside, Tommy,” his mother said.
She kept the eyes on the humans while she herded her son. The door slammed and from behind it came the thunk of a crossbeam. The curtains drew to a slit.
“They seem as afraid of us as we are of them,” Norian said.
“I'd say we're still ahead,” Mirian replied. She sniffed. “More trolls are coming. Adults. Males.”
Deciding they'd worn their welcome, they resumed progress to the road.
As they neared the highway, they took concealment in the brush and surveyed. Running north-south and being similarly paved with the same width and smoothness, the Kaden Road in the Land of the Trolls might have been the Pola Road through Umbrick.
The trolls that came and went in clusters were dressed the same as peasants and merchants in the rest of Britan, save for a preference of capes and walking sticks. Except for size and an emphasis on rotund shapes, the traveling parties seemed no different than their human counterparts elsewhere in Britan. They spoke Standard and when they sang, it was the same songs as travelers sang on the Oksiden Road. It would have been easy to imagine the scene being anywhere else in Britan, except that the horses and donkeys pulling the wagons were normal-size and hence diminutive in comparison.
The road was empty for minutes at a time, and Carrot said, “Let's see if we can walk upon the road. It would be faster travel than through these bushes.”
“And less stickier and moist,” Mirian agreed. “Where are we going again?”
“North. And no, I can't be more specific. Not yet anyway.”
The next time the road was empty, they ventured onto it and headed north. They managed to travel almost a kilometer. When they sensed voices nearing, they ran for cover.
Walk, listen, run, crouch, wait, return, walk . . . that was their afternoon.
While they lay observing in the concealment of underbrush fifty meters from the road, Carrot commented, “They are so much like humans, it is obvious their ancestors once were humans.”
“Another Box Wish gone horribly wrong,” Mirian said. “Like with the Little People. Careful what you wish for!”
“Mirian,” Norian said. “The Box may have other purposes than the misgranting of wishes.”
“Norian, why would the misgranting of wishes be a purpose?”
“From what Carrot tells of the one in Rome, the Boxes are mad. They don't have to make sense.”
Carrot nodded, recalling that Matt had said the same.
“The Pandoras are mad by our judgment,” she replied. “Still, they follow their own reasoning. But before you ask, no, I do not know what reasons account for the making of elves, dwarfs, and trolls.”
“I know what dwarf and troll are,” Mirian said. “But what is an elv?”
“I think I know what one is,” Norian said to her, grinning. “Perhaps you've met only two kinds of mutant who dwell in the Northwest, but Carrot and I have met three!”
Carrot answered Mirian's puzzled expression: “It's a name that Matt mentioned for a mythical people who live among the stars. I applied it to the people of your village, unthinking. I apologize.”
“'Elv.'” Mirian tilted her head. “I rather like it.”
The afternoon wore on. The traffic thickened. They would barely reach the road, then hear new voices, and have to rush away. They spent most of their time hiding in the brush.
“I can't say we're not making progress,” Mirian said. “I am progressed well into boredom.”
“It is not that we are doing nothing,” Norian said. “We are spying.”
Mirian rubbed her back. “Spying is a lot like crouching in grass.”
Norian wrinkled his temples. “Voices. Listen!”
Of course the women had heard the voices well before Norian had, but hadn't paid attention as voices were as common as travelers on the road. As she listened intently, however, Carrot realized that Norian was right to single these out. The voices were higher-pitched, less throaty.
Then came the scents: humans.
Four travelers rounded the south bend of the road: two troll males, two human males. All were well dressed, down to silken capes, polished walking sticks and fur-lined high boots. They shared two leashes, each held by a troll and connecting to a collar around a human's neck.
“Prisoners!” Norian hissed. “Or worse – slaves!”
“We must free them,” Carrot whispered.
“Our mission is too important to be distracted,” Mirian said hotly. “Am I the only one who sees that?”
“Our intervention will not be purely altruistic,” Carrot replied. “They might have useful information.”
Mirian sighed. “All right, but shall we wait until they get a distance ahead? I've noticed a few of the trolls sniffing the air as they go by. I think they're scenting us. Well – they're sniffing you and Norian at least.”
The troll/human party continued walking casually upon the smooth road, while Carrot's party huffed as they wove through a parallel, undulating obstacle course of brush, rocks, and stumps. Their quarry rounded a curve, and when Carrot's party reached it, they found empty road ahead.
Norian pointed to a narrow trail that led off-road. “Likely they went there to rest out of the sun. We have our chance to catch them alone and unsuspecting. Shall we take it?”
“We shall,” Carrot said.
They doffed their backpacks. Knowing she wasn't ready to use it, Carrot left her kedana and drew her familiar short-sword. Bending below the height of the tall grass, they stalked toward the grove where the trail went.
The trolls emerged, bearing canteens. They took another trail, toward the stream that paralleled the road. Carrot motioned for her companions to follow into the grove. They entered into the shade beneath the trees.
The two humans were alone, sitting on logs, their leashes hanging limp. They were having an animated chat, which halted when one of them noticed Carrot. Together they silently stared at the armed intruders.
“We've come to rescue you,” Carrot said in low but urgent tones.
“Rescue?” the older man asked. “Why?”
“Are you not prisoners?”
The younger man started. “Trak, look! They have no collars!”
Trak narrowed his eyes. “Where are your sponsors?”
Carrot heard heavy thrashing on grass. The scent of the trolls hit her as the returning pair clopped into the clearing, ducking their heads beneath the branches.
“Hey, Trak,” the first troll said. “I was thinking of a new marketing strat – “ He stopped at the sight of the raised blades of the newly-arrived humans.
“John, look out!” the other troll cried. “She's got arrows!”
The giants cringed under the aim of Mirian's drawn bow, hiding their faces under improbably large hands.
“We'll give you everything we've got,” the troll named John said. “Spare our lives and eyes, for we have family to support!”
“No one is going to harm anyone,” Trak said. He faced Carrot and raised an eyebrow. “Are we?”
Carrot finally paused to take in the situation. The humans didn't seem in discomfort. The trolls were quivering. “We'll put our weapons away.”
Mirian gave a protesting glare, but complied, as did Norian. The trolls dropped their hands and stood up, their bushy heads brushing the canopy of leaves.
“You don't have the look of robbers,” Trak said. “And Henogal is an odd place for human robbers. May I inquire what you are doing here?”
Carrot searched for a plausible evasion. “We are exp
lorers. And who are you?”
“My partner Sten and I are merchants of glassware,” Trak replied. “May I inquire as to your names?”
“This is Norian, this is Mirian. I am called Carrot.”
“Carrot. Seems I've heard that name.” His eyes widened. “Not the Queen Carrot of the Battle of the Dark Forest!”
“I am not a quee – “
“Yes,” Norian said. “The Carrot of the Dark Forest!”
“This is quite an honor!” Trek said. He bowed deeply, then turned to the trolls. “John, Bob! This is the girl who defeated the Romans in battle! The only Britanian ever to do so!”
Bob frowned. “Seems kind of young for that.”
John scowled at his fellow troll. “She's supposed to be young, you idiot. If you'd sit at camp fire and listen to our clients instead of going off to drink yourself numb each night, you'd have heard many times of the 'Child Queen of Britan.'”
Carrot did not miss Mirian's smirk.
“Maybe a queen of Human Britan,” Bob muttered.
John faced Carrot and elaborately bowed. “It is a great honor to meet you, my lady.” Holding one hand up – apparently to reassure that it was weaponless – he reached into his vest with the other hand and plucked out a small white card, which he presented to Carrot. “We are at your service and that of your court.”
The text on the card was as professionally printed as anything that came out of Londa. Carrot read:
John Pine / of John Pine & Robert Rice Associates / Kingdom of Henogal / Royally Licensed and Bonded Professional Sponsors for Human Visitation / Parties up to three welcome / Inquire at 'Troll' River Bridge. Allow two weeks for response.
“Er – thank you,” Carrot said. She bowed and put the card away. “Perhaps you can be of service. We are in search of the Box – “
Bob blurted a laugh. John glared, and Bob said, “Well, you heard her. She said she's looking for the Box!”
“And she could be the one who finds it,” John said smoothly. He sat on a log and motioned Bob to sit too, so that their eye level was the same as the standing humans. “Now, Carrot – may I call you that?”
The Witches of Ne'arth (The Star Wizards Trilogy Book 2) Page 22