The sound of running water was louder as she neared the light. She hadn’t been able to hear that at the cave’s entrance. Instinctively, she crouched down and continued forward as close to the cave’s floor as she could. She crept slowly closer to the light until she could see where it was coming from, staying as cloaked as possible in the dark. The cave opened up, she saw, into a section without a roof. She couldn’t tell if it had collapsed a long time ago, but she could see trees high above the opening after her eyes scanned up the rocky walls and the earth that sat above them. Roots protruded out of the soil around the room. If she had been standing above and looking down, she would have thought it was a pit.
The area was large but had no other exits or tunnels leading from it. The middle of the pit had been cleared away, either by the troll or some previous occupant. The rocks had been pushed to the outside walls of the area, and there were the remnants of a fire in the middle of the space. The corpse of the sheep and the farmer had been dumped unceremoniously next to the ash and charred pieces of wood. Kate couldn’t see the troll anywhere and crept forward until the entire pit was visible. The troll was gone.
She stood upright slowly and walked into the light. There were bones strewn around the troll’s den. There were piles of filth next to them. Several sheep skulls and those of other animals she couldn’t recognize. A skull of another troll, she guessed, and at least one heap of human bones and its skull neatly placed on top as if it was on display. The pit was large but had no hiding places for something the size of the troll. It wasn’t there.
She looked back into the cave where she had come from and that’s when she heard it: a low growl coming from above. She saw the feet first, its chipped claws extending over the rim of the pit. Its arms were full of snapped branches, freshly torn from the trees around the pit it had climbed out of it. The troll stared mutely down at her for a moment while they exchanged glances, as if neither could believe what they were seeing, before the monster erupted.
The firewood was tossed into the air and the troll roared as it fell. She saw no evidence of the wound the pitchfork had left in its stomach but it moved too quickly for her to ponder on its recovery, diving down into its lair and bearing down on Kate, its intruder. She held the sword out as the monster lumbered toward her, as if the weapon would somehow magically ward it off. If anything, the monster only increased its speed.
Don’t think, just do. Don’t think, just do. Don’t think, just do.
The sword felt foreign in her hands, but it wasn’t heavy. Her body was used to holding it. She stood and watched as the troll raised its claws to slash at her, an overhead attack that would come down and puncture her skull. She stared, transfixed, as it moved its claws, at first paralyzed by indecision and then by the rapid processing of what was happening in front of her.
Just do.
Claws up. Coming down. Torso vulnerable. Doesn’t think you’re a threat. Drive forward. Sword first, into its chest, push it down. It’s strong. You’re stronger. Lunge into it. Pin it down, roll away, grab sword.
The troll’s claws were above its head. She led with the blade as she charged forward, putting her weight against the sword and thrusting off the stone floor with all the strength in her legs. The claws stayed above the troll’s head as the sword pierced through its stomach, directly below its sternum. The monster toppled backwards from the force she put into it, sliding the sword in deeper as she fell forward with it, skewering it to the floor. The troll thrashed instantly as its back collided with the stone, slashing wildly with its arms and legs. She rolled away without losing any momentum from her forward thrust, dodging its attacks easily and then spinning back, grabbing the sword’s hilt and yanking it free before the troll could pull it out and use it against her.
It’s bleeding black, liver punctured. Heart now. Through the ribs. It’ll charge. Step to the side. Spin, slash its back, Duck, step, duck, spin and parry with the blade. Twist. Then strike.
Kate pressed off her right foot and launched herself to the left as the troll crashed into the wall behind her. She turned as she landed, slicing cleanly along the troll’s back and ripping the flesh along its spine. It screeched and snapped around on its heels, raking its claws in the air at her head; she was already ducking, then hopped back away from its second attack, and ducked the third. She spun on her heels as she stood upright, coming around to face the troll’s attack with the blade vertical in front of her, meeting its claws with the sharp edge of the blade. The sword slid between its claws and carved through the webbing between its thick fingers, halving its hand in two all the way down to the wrist. She wrenched the blade in her hand, splitting the wound wider and the troll howled in agony. She yanked the blade free then, elbow behind her head in an instant and then back forward in the next, plunging the blade into the monster’s chest, through its heart, and out of its back.
Blood splattered the wall behind the troll as the blade emerged. Its screaming stopped as its lungs filled with blood and flooded out of its mouth. It went limp on the blade and then fell to the floor, taking the sword from Kate’s hand with it. She blinked once and found that she was panting, out of breath and her heart beating so fast she could feel it in her ears and temples. She looked down at her hands like they weren’t hers, capable of more than she was and belonging to someone else.
She yanked the blade free of the troll’s corpse. It was still twitching even after it died, and she thought nothing of it as she walked slowly back into the cave. The blade was covered in the monster’s thick blood, an unblended mix of red and green like the two colors had been braided in strands together rather than whisked into one uniform color. It dribbled on the floor of the cave as she walked but she didn’t notice until she was back outside, standing at the entrance in front of Calder.
“You killed it then,” he said, nodding at the sword.
“Yes,” she said quietly.
“Without me,” he added.
Kate stared at him. Questions were ready to burst out of her now. Her body felt like the blade had, foreign and wrong, misused and worn wrong like the armor she had haphazardly strapped on over her clothes.
“How are you going to harvest it?” Calder added.
“What do you mean?”
“You always harvest a troll’s organs and its blood,” once again he was looking at her like he was explaining something as simple as the weather. “You didn’t bring any oil so you must have chopped its head off to stop it from regenerating. The blood will be ruined by the time we get back. We should have gone home for the jars first.”
Her fingers tensed around the hilt of the sword. She stared at him and felt numb.
The troll will have regenerated by now.
She turned as the roar came out of the cave. The troll was slouching out and into the light. The wounds on its chest were already healed. She saw its claws, part of its right one still hanging loose and flapping against itself as it staggered toward them. She heard the sound of Calder drawing his sword cleanly from its sheath. She moved without thought, in tandem with the barrage of directions that came into her head now instead of responding to them.
She took a step forward with her right foot and then turned on it, bringing the blade over her shoulder and cleaving through the troll’s attack. The blade felt as light as air in her hands, severing the troll’s arms from the rest of its body as it sliced through them. She used both hands in the final advance, swinging the blade horizontally in front of her and through the troll’s neck. The head popped off in a shower of red and green blood, launched away from its body and rolling when it hit the ground as if it had been knocked off rather than cut.
The troll’s body collapsed once again, spluttering blood out of its exposed neck but finally dead for certain. She turned and saw Calder staring at her, eyes wide and then quickly narrowed. He took a step to her, still holding the sword at his side. He took one more step and then raised it at her.
“Who are you?”
She closed her
eyes. So close. She silently cursed herself. One mistake, right at the end, so close.
“Who are you!” he roared.
“Kate. I’m Kate,” she opened her eyes.
“No, no you’re not. Kate would never have made that mistake. It’s a troll. The first thing she ever taught me to hunt. The first thing we ever killed together, protecting this town. Over and over she told me, burn it when it falls. Failing that, cut off the head. No, what are you?”
She stared back at him. She lowered the sword to her side. He took another step forward, pointing the sword closer to her chest, taking the opening like she hoped he would. She struck her fastest yet, the sword a blur even to her own eyes as she knocked Calder’s weapon cleanly out of his hand. It landed somewhere to the side, clanging on the ground before it came to a rest.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” she said softly.
“What did you do with Kate?” his mouth was curled up in fury. “How did you take her place? She always said shapeshifters weren’t real, they didn’t exist, but she had to be wrong. What did you do to her? Tell me that at least,” his cheeks were flushed and his eyes were close to tearing.
No way around it now, she thought and hated that it was true. She lowered the sword once again and began to explain. She left nothing out, telling him about the previous night and morning with every detail that she had witnessed. His expression sobered quickly at the mention of the poison and then furled up again at the line about not trusting him. He had slumped down against a tree by the end of it. She had placed the sword on the ground and leaned against the rock wall of the cave.
“That explains a lot,” he murmured. “Whatever it is you’re wearing. I think we took that armor from bandits months ago. You were going to take it apart for scraps. The sword, too. I thought you were punishing me.”
“Why? What happened between the two of you? Why not trust you?”
“The two of you?” he repeated, tasting the words. “Here I was relieved that you weren’t an imposter but in a way my Kate is still dead isn’t she?”
Calder looked over at her. His eyes were filling with tears again. The reality of what she had told him finally sinking in. The expression she had seen on his face many times that day was back and she suddenly knew that it hadn’t been anger she was witnessing but pain.
“You really don’t remember anything? We went to Bancroft’s Dam last year. We found the vampires and garvores in the sewers. No? The ogre that attacked the town six months ago? Further back then,” his eyes were twitching again as he thought rapidly. “The ghoul of Charn. The giant boar of Newmark?”
She shook her head.
“Eight years ago. The gramarg of Latterton?”
“I don’t even know what a gramarg is, Calder,” she said gently. “Or any of those places you keep naming.”
“Nothing. Gone. Why would she do this?”
“I told you about the note. She said it was necessary. That she’s, I’ve, done it many times before.”
“Bullshit,” he snapped. “Bullshit! You’re older than you look. Your potions help that. Even I’m older than I look thanks to those, but you’re not that old, Kate. She was lying. She would have told me.”
“Just like she told you about wiping her memory this time?”
“No. We came back home. She said she wanted some time alone after what happened,” his words trailed off. He had been scowling at her but his expression turned vacant, staring off for a moment and then looked back at her. “That’s why she did it. Varis. Do you remember Varis?”
“Is that a person or a monster?”
“Both, she’s both. Varis. Think. Nothing?”
Kate shook her head.
“Fuck!” he shouted suddenly, his voice echoing back around them. “So you get to forget and I’m stuck with it? Fuck! Fuck you! Fuck her!”
“What happened? Tell me. Who is this Varis?”
“No,” he put his hands on the tree trunk behind him and pulled himself upright.
“Calder,” she said, harsher than she knew she could.
“No,” he repeated. “You thought it was important enough to erase all of your memories to forget. I’m not going to replace the one thing you wanted to be rid of.”
She felt her teeth scrape together, another automatic response that grated on her nerves. She watched him walk toward the cave.
“What are you doing?”
“Rakestrow’s body,” he sighed. “They’ll want to bury it.”
Kate stayed quiet as he left. She stared at the troll’s corpse as she waited.
* * *
Calder carried the body. He refused to let Kate help. They stopped at the farm. Kate waited outside while Calder spoke with Thomas Rakestrow’s wife. He said little when he came out and even less as they walked back into town.
They didn’t stop at the tavern or the market. Calder’s glare was enough to even keep Anabelle away from buzzing around Kate. They crossed the bridge and left town on the other side, following the same road they had earlier back to Kate’s house. He stood with her at the door still mentally weighing things before he spoke; his eyes and face visibly showed when he was thinking, a trait that Kate was growing to like.
“What are you going to do?” he asked finally.
“I don’t know.”
“Are you going to stay here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you going to continue killing monsters?”
“Calder, I don’t know.”
He put his hand on the front door and stepped into the house before she could protest. She followed him into the study and watched while he pressed his hands to the wall next to the fireplace, the only wall in the room that wasn’t covered in shelves or a bookcase. She heard something click, responding to the pressure from his hands, and then part of the wall slid apart from the rest of it.
There was a hidden compartment, a meter long and half again that wide and deep. There were four pairs of hangars attached inside, with blades on the top three. The lowest one was empty. The swords were the same length as the one on her hip but that was where the similarities ended. Calder took one of them from the compartment and held it up for her. He unsheathed it slowly, showing the beautiful blade that flourished in the light around it, near shimmering with how well its surface was maintained.
He sheathed the sword and held it out to her. The hilt felt perfect in her hand. There were straps of cloth wrapped tightly around the handle so she didn’t have to hold the sword so tightly. The blade felt more like a balanced extension of her arm rather than the awkward hunk of metal the sword at her hip had felt. She wondered if that was why it had felt so foreign to her right up until she was forced to use it.
She put the sword back in the compartment. She wondered at the empty hangar for a moment before Calder was moving again, opening the door to her bedroom and walking in without asking for permission. She followed him once again and saw that he already had his hands on another wall, the one that the room shared with the workshop. A larger compartment was revealed this time, and he stepped aside for her to see it.
There were two sets of armor hanging within the wall. It explained the lack of a doorway, she thought. Like the blade, the armor put the set she was wearing to shame. There were several more straps and separate pieces for her shoulders, upper arms, wrists, thighs, and shins. There were matching boots at the bottom of the compartment. All of the pieces were a dark brown, almost black like her hair. There were no patterns or embroidery on the leather, just simple layers of protective armor that she could already see would fit her precise measurements.
“Who made these?” she asked, suddenly realizing how stupid she looked in what she was currently wearing. It was a wonder that Calder took so long to call her out on not knowing what she was doing.
“You did,” he said, cocking his head at her. “You didn’t look outside the house, I assume.”
She shook her head. Already she was looking around the room for any other potential
hiding places. Something still nagged at her about the state of the room. Something was missing, she just didn’t know what. There were clothes on the floor. An empty wooden bath in one corner. The bed’s blankets were still a mess from when she had abruptly woken up that morning. She looked at Calder.
“You’ve been in here before, then.”
“Many times,” he said without smiling.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not you I’m angry at. It’s who you were before that I’m having trouble forgiving.”
He walked around her and out of the room. She followed after him but he moved quickly through the study and out the front door. She watched him leave down the path without looking back. Despite herself, she felt guilty.
Do not trust Calder.
She closed the door.
There was an extension at the back of the house where she found what Calder mentioned. Stones had been placed from the back wall of the house and the roof extended to be supported by two thin pillars a few meters out. There was a large, circular hearth and a variety of objects and tools around it. She didn’t recognize them and it wasn’t until later when she found her notes on working metal that she could identify all of the parts of the forge: the bellows, the cooling tank, the different sections and uses of the anvil, and the seemingly endless hammers and tongs scattered around it.
She was almost certain that her knowledge of using the forge had been lost. She tried not to think of what other skills had been taken by the poison. She carried piles of wood into the house instead, starting up the main fireplace and the cooking hearth in the kitchen. There had been no time for breakfast when Calder had arrived that morning and she hadn’t eaten the night before. The day had caught up with her and, as much as she wanted to start reading through the books in the study, her growling stomach took priority.
The Wizard And The Dragon Page 29