Soon they entered KhanzaRoo proper, the pride of the Trollkin people. When the Troll King had first led them here, it was a swamp-choked ruins. Only the three tallest buildings had been visible, emerging from the dense next of vines and brush. The hard work and ingenuity of the fledgling race had changed that.
Now it was a bustling city. The undergrowth had been cut away and the waterways cleared. New bridges linked the permanent stone buildings to the various grassy islands between waterways. These islands were now covered with wooden huts and other temporary structures that had been built to house the booming population.
And booming it was. The air was filled with sound as industrious trollkin toiled with newly discovered talents. They had carpenters and stonemasons. Butchers and hunters. Fabric makers had used the swamp’s vast resources to make sturdy moisture resistant cloth in which to clothe the people. They even had a few blacksmiths, though their access to metals was limited and the hazards of fire meant that they had to be very careful.
In truth, the work had only just begun. KhanzaRoo had once been the capital city of the Roo nation. A hundred thousand people had lived there at the height of its power. Most of the old structures were long gone, but the trollkin uncovered new parts of the city every day.
Djeri meant to head straight for the Old Hospital, but was waylaid by the smell of fresh meat. He realized that he hadn’t eaten in many hours. His mouth watered and his stomach churned as the hunger awoke within him. Djeri held back the screech that rose in his throat. He was able to sublimate the trollish urge most of the time, but at times like now the feeling was overwhelming. The gray one next to him growled smelling it too.
A few bridges over was a broad square paved with crumbling stone. This place was known as the feeding area. It had once been the city’s main marketplace, but the trollkin had no need for markets. They did not have currency to bargain or trade with. They were organized into groups that provided goods and services for all.
Hunters and procurers went into the swamps at all times of the day. They brought back meat and edible vegetables to this square. There butchers had set up tables and, using crude knives made from stone or bone or perhaps just using their own sharp claws, they dissected the kills and laid them out on great stone slabs for anyone to eat.
This was perhaps the busiest place in the city for the hunger was something that all of them battled to some degree. There was no cooking involved. No plates or cutlery. No manners. Feeding was done in a frenzy.
The people gathered around the great stone slabs, feasting. Several of the largest and strongest trollkin were stationed here, ready to stop any fights that broke out during the animalistic feed, though mostly they spent their time dragging away people that had gorged themselves and were so overcome by the hunger that they did not know when to stop. A quick dunk in the nearby canal usually woke them up.
His headache forgotten, Djeri ran to the square with the dog-like part-kobald at his heels. He pushed his way through the frenzied crowd and arrived just as a butcher tossed the front half of a croc carcass onto the slab. He snarled, elbowing a weaker trollkin aside, then clutched the carcass and ran away from the grasp of any of his overeager brethren.
He tore into it as he ran. His teeth were more dwarf-like than troll, meant for grinding more than tearing, but he made up for the lack of sharpness with the power of his bite. The croc had been relatively small. His portion weighed maybe ten pounds, but he soon had it mostly stripped of meat.
The hunger died down and as his headache returned he heard a whimpering sound. He looked down to see that the part-kobald had followed him and was squatting patiently, staring up at him with pleading eyes, drool hanging from its open mouth. It had sat there unmoving the whole time, picking up any scraps of skin or flesh that he had let fall. There hadn’t been many.
Djeri nodded in approval, impressed that it had been able to hold back the hunger this long. “Alright, Gray,” he said and tossed it what he hadn’t eaten. It tore into the remnants of the carcass with gusto, its teeth snapping the crocs thick bones. Djeri smiled. Gray seemed a good name for the thing.
By the time he made it back on the path to the Old Hospital night had fallen upon the city. The bridges and streets were dark, but still busy. The trollkin dared not hazard lighting the night with fire, but most of them had the use of trollish heat vision. Djeri resisted shifting into troll sight, worried that it would cause his headache to flare again.
Luckily, the moon had risen above the trees and though only a crescent was bright enough to illuminate the way. He began to think of the events of the day and the trends he had seen in the Mother’s birthing. As he walked past a row of buildings not far from the hospital, his thoughts were interrupted.
“Hey, you!” said a nearby voice.
Djeri turned to see an odd trollkin approaching. He was slightly taller that Djeri with skin that was a darker green than most. He had a human-like face, though cat ears sat atop his head and a set of whiskers sprouting from his cheeks. But that wasn’t what Djeri found odd. This trollkin was wearing brown pants and a slime-soaked shirt that were too small for his body and they weren’t of a style made by the trollkin clothiers. Even stranger were the spectacles the trollkin wore. How had he come across those?
Walking next to him was another hulking trollkin. Only Djeri couldn’t pinpoint what its race had been prior to birth. It was naked and sexless, vaguely troll-like, but very muscular with large eyes, a small mouth, and a full head of bushy black hair. Djeri thought about using his discerning eye on it, but he didn’t want to make his headache worse. The sparks in his vision were already strong enough that it looked like a shimmering line was connecting the two trollkin.
The part-human with the spectacles came up close to Djeri, bending slightly to look into his eyes. Djeri could see the dull red tint in them that showed the use of troll sight. “Tell me, part-dwarf. Have you been dreaming lately?”
“Dreaming?” Djeri leaned back from the person’s advance, but did not step away.
“Yes,” the trollkin pressed. “Odd dreams where you are someone else perhaps?”
He found the stranger’s directness off-putting, but felt a strange compulsion to answer him. “I . . . don’t remember any dreams.”
“Hmm,” the man said, looking disappointed.
Gray came up to sniff at the bulky trollkin of indeterminate race. The large thing squatted down and patted Gray’s head. “Hello.”
The part-kobald hyperventilated and licked its hand in response. Evidently he liked what he tasted because he licked its hand again and looked up at its face with a fond expression.
The bespectacled trollkin, still focused on Djeri, scratched at one of his cat-like ears. “Well, I have a feeling that you will start having dreams soon and they won’t be the kind you can forget. When this happens you will come and find me, yes? What is your name?”
“Djeri,” he replied, blinking as he tried to figure out why he should care about anything this person said. “And what is your name?”
“Stolz,” the trollkin said.
“Why do you ask this of me?” Djeri asked. “Did the Mother give you a talent for interpreting dreams?”
“Uh, yes. Yes! That’s exactly what I should have said when I approached you. So . . . I will see you when you start dreaming?” he asked, but it was more of a statement than a question. Licking his lips, Stolz turned away and headed back towards the alley from whence he had come. “Come, Bluth. Leave the dog be.”
“Okay,” said the large thing and patted Gray’s head once again before standing and following the part-human down the alleyway.
The Old Hospital was one of the few stone buildings that had survived the centuries. Like the Axis Palace it was pyramidal in shape and made of massive stone blocks that were anchored to the very bedrock at the bottom of the swamp. These stone buildings were one of the few areas in the swamp that were not resting atop the Mother’s vast body but were instead islands that she had formed hers
elf around.
Several of the new trollkin born earlier that day were exiting the building when Djeri arrived. These ones had been newly healed of deformities and were being led to places where they could sleep for the night.
When Djeri entered the building he was forced to switch to troll sight after all. He grimaced, pain flaring as his vision shifted to hues of reds and pinks and oranges. He made his way down long corridors lined with reed-covered doorways to rooms where trollkin slept.
The lower floors of the building were mostly inhabited by trollkin who had formed relationships and sought privacy. These couplings had become common as the population grew and more and more of the Mother’s children were born with full reproductive systems. According to Mellinda, there were already well over a dozen pregnancies, something that the people saw as a sign of the Mother’s favor.
Djeri’s goal was higher up, though. Mellinda and her closest followers resided in the top two floors of the building. He headed up flights of stone stairs with Gray following silently behind him until a subtle change in his vision told him he had arrived.
Mellinda kept the top floors illuminated with glow orbs that she had created and set into the walls at equal distances down the corridors. He let out a sigh of relief as he switched back to regular sight and his headache faded to a dull ache that thumped with his heartbeat. At the next flight of steps Djeri came upon a tall part-elf.
“Recks, where is Mellinda?” Djeri asked.
Recks arched a manicured eyebrow at him. “Must you see her now, Jerry?”
Recks was one of Mellinda’s closest and oldest supporters and her many ministrations had turned him into the epitome of trollkin beauty. With this beauty had come an abject arrogance and at the moment Djeri had to resist the urge to tear that eyebrow off of Recks’ head.
“Yes,” he growled. “I have a message for her from the Troll King.”
Recks snorted. The part-elf made no secret of his distaste for the king. “Better for us all if he hadn’t returned. Very well. She is on the balcony above. Exhausted, as you can imagine after all the work she has been put through today.”
Djeri tried unsuccessfully not to let his displeasure with Recks’ attitude show on his face. He grunted and moved past the part-elf, heading for the last stairway. Recks was so busy rolling his eyes that he didn’t notice Gray following Djeri up.
At the top of the Old Hospital was a wide covered balcony with a view of the city unmatched anywhere but the Axis Palace itself. It was there that Djeri found Mellinda, lounging on a pile of cushions that her followers had created for her.
Her eyes were closed, but it did not look like she was sleeping. Her face twitched, her mouth moving as if she were having a rather intense silent conversation with herself. Nevertheless, Djeri hesitated to speak. The silence was finally broken when Gray let out a low growl.
Mellinda sat up, a scowl appearing on her face as she looked at the part-dog. Gray quieted immediately, cringing and backing away from her. She then turned her gaze on Djeri and her scowl disappeared, replaced by a welcoming smile. If she was tired, she showed no sign of it. “There you are, Djeri. How did the birthing go?”
Djeri knew that she had already heard of events from the other cullers, likely multiple times. Another question was on his mind. “Why did you not return?”
Her smile twitched. “You saw the way the King expelled me from Solitude. If I ran back to him it would only show weakness.” She waved a hand idly. “I will be there tomorrow and he shall remember how much easier it is when I am at his side.”
Djeri’s lips twisted. So it was as Murtha said. She had been sulking.
Mellinda leaned forward. “But that is of little importance, Djeri. Tell me what your discerning eye saw. What happened when the King spoke with the Mother?”
Djeri told her what happened, the way that the king’s attitude had changed. He didn’t mention how impressed he had been with the king, but he gave her an accounting of the day, ending with the king’s message about this new crop of possible magic users.
“That many? How wonderful,” she said, her smile broadening with that information, but she did send him a vexed look. “I take it you did not tell him of the ones you had found for me before his arrival?”
Djeri bit his lip. “No. I did as you wished. Why do you not want him to know of the others? He is not like people say, you know.”
Mellinda stood and approached him, placing a hand on his cheek. “Of course you feel this way. And I do not deny that he is strong and cares for our people. After all, he is the Mother’s chosen one. However, your thoughts have been twisted by his gift. He touched you, did he not?”
“Yes,” Djeri said, remembering the feelings that had surged within him when the king had grasped his shoulder.
“Then you should understand the danger of a power like that. You must trust me, Djeri. It is crucial that we keep a small segment of the population untouched by that power. The Mother told me so herself when I spoke with her directly.”
“Did she?” Djeri asked numbly, unsure what to believe.
The jewels embedded in her fingers glittered in the light of the globes as she ran her soft hand down his neck, coming to rest on the front of his chest. “She did. But it is something that the King would never understand, so I appreciate that you kept that information silent. You do trust me, don’t you?”
“Of course, Mellinda,” he said, keeping all his doubts out of his voice.
“Very good,” she purred. “And what of the other matter I asked of you? Did you talk with Murtha?”
“I . . . did not find the time,” Djeri replied. “We were much too busy with the birthing.”
Mellinda had been grooming him for this assignment since his birth. She wanted Murtha to come to trust her and she felt that the best way to do so was to get her to fall in love with Djeri. She had used her magic to tweak his appearance in multiple tiny ways to take out any flaws that the Mother had left in him, at the same time taking care not to make him too perfect. She had already seen that Murtha disdained those that were overly altered by her power.
“Then we will make sure you have it tomorrow,” she told him, removing her hand from his chest. “With my help at the Mother’s womb you will have the opportunity. Let her know you like her. Show her your interest.”
He wasn’t at all interested, but that wasn’t what he told her. “I still do not understand. Even if she comes to like me, why would that make her come to trust you?”
“Oh Djeri. You know nothing of the vanity of women,” she said with a laugh. “Believe me, once she comes to see that the Mother birthed you two for each other she will come to me.”
Djeri did his best to keep his expression neutral. “There is something else I would like to tell you.”
“Oh?” she said.
“The King told me my slime was flammable,” he said.
“Is it?” she said, sounding surprised. “I thought the Mother had learned better. I was quite surprised when there were five flammable ones sent to me today.”
Djeri struggled to keep the frown off of his face. She could say what she wanted about the king, but he did not like the disdain in her voice regarding his goddess. He also wondered how she could have missed the fact that his slime was flammable during all the other minor adjustments she had made to his body.
She continued on, “And there are still far more deformities than I would like to see. But perhaps it is understandable considering the sheer numbers of bodies she is creating.” Mellinda paused, noticing his change of attitude. “Now-now, Djeri. I am not forgetting you.”
She held her hands out towards him again and this time her fingers writhed bonelessly. He saw multicolored threads of magic leave her hands to enter his body and his skin tingled as she worked her magic.
It was late when he returned to his small room on Mellinda’s floor. Though his head still ached, he fell instantly to sleep. Gray curled up next to him.
That night Djeri dreamt of a
woman with a bent nose.
Chapter Six
Tarah walked down Roo-Tan’lan’s main street ignoring the calls of passers-by as she approached the grounds of the Protector’s Palace, her stomach in knots.
She was pregnant. Tarah Woodblade was with child. Even two days after finding out about it the thought of it churned her emotions. On one hand there was something comforting about knowing that Djeri’s child was growing within her. Yet as happy as the thought made her, this was a terribly inconvenient time for this kind of thing.
What was she supposed to do? War was coming. She had too many battles ahead of her to worry about protecting a baby. She certainly wasn’t going to sit back and rest while other people fought. Not with Djeri possibly ending up on the opposing side.
Thankfully it was still early in the pregnancy. No one would be able to tell her condition by looking at her. Not for some time yet anyway and that was good because she wasn’t sharing this with anyone else. Beth and Tolynn had been sworn to secrecy.
On top of dealing with those concerns, she had to worry about Cletus. The gnome had gone missing. It wasn’t overly unusual for Cletus to disappear for hours or even a day chasing after some animal or finding a series of trees he wanted to climb. But he had been gone for three days now. If Tolynn and Beth hadn’t been keeping her so busy she would have already gone after him. One thing was for certain. After this meeting she was going to track him down.
Located at the center of Roo-Tan’lan, the palace was a sprawling complex of white stone buildings and manicured gardens surrounded by rock fences ten feet high. It contained training areas for the Protector’s elite guards, meeting halls for all the Roo-Tan houses, as well as smaller buildings to house the servants and staff.
The two guards posted at the gates took one look at Tarah and nodded her through. She had often been a guest of the Protector. Lately as he had been calling her in daily to report on one of her tracking missions or to use her ability to read memories from some odd piece of evidence that had been brought forward to him.
Behemoth (The Jharro Grove Saga Book 6) Page 10