It was a lot bigger than Dendle expected, but he found he felt no fear and was pleased the troll would be a worthy opponent.
Chapter Twenty Seven
Prince Darblin, Big H, and the elves, along with a few of Luck of the Little's crew, were busy bailing water from the lower holds of the sinking ship. They passed buckets up through the levels to the deck, where they were hauled to the side and poured over. While this was happening, Braxton and Nixy were naked and wrapped around each other, both oblivious to the pending doom of their predicament. They'd finished their shift of bailing not long ago, and upon entering their part of the pen, Nixy stripped herself bare and attacked Braxton like a starved animal on a piece of meat.
Braxton heard her say something about not wanting to sink to the bottom of the sea without knowing him. After that it was all grunts, moans, and even a growl or two. It was all he could do to catch his breath.
For a day and a half, since the creature had crippled the ship, they had been bailing water nonstop in shifts. The sea was slowly winning the battle, but as Captain Pickerell said, "Every moment we stay afloat is a moment I can get us that much closer to land." When he said it, that much was only the space between his thumb and index finger, but it was closer. The main sail and a few others were strung up, and the ship was moving. The carpenter of the crew made a valiant attempt to close the hole in the lower part of the hull but the amount of water wouldn't allow him to get it done properly. If they could bail faster than the water was coming in, then they could give him a chance but, so far, they weren't even getting close.
They had bought enough time to properly stock and ready the three row boats so that they could all keep from going down with the ship, but they were too far out at sea to have a fair chance of making land in the smaller crafts. So, for a third of the day, each group took a turn handing bucket after bucket of sea water up to the deck.
At the moment, Braxton had not a care in the world, not even for the sinking ship. Nixy's smooth flesh bore down on him, full of intense heat and desire. Nixy was as giving as Master Bee had been demanding. Braxton being on the receiving end, wanted nothing more in life than what he was getting, except for maybe a breath or two he didn't have to fight for. After hour upon hour of bailing water from the ship, he was so exhausted that he spun through an ecstatic blackness full of moist kisses and deep pleasure. These were only broken by the occasional gasp of satisfaction.
Finally, after what could have been only minutes, but might have been days, for he wasn't sure, Braxton exploded into her, and when he did, his consciousness slipped away. He went tumbling through the depths of his mind and ended up in the blackness of the void he worked so hard, so often in his meditation exercises, to find.
In this void, the object that appeared in front of him wasn't the normal gold coin he had used every time since he started. It was the jewel from the medallion.
This was Taerak's void.
The gem hovered before him, rotating slowly around emitting shimmering rays of pastel light.
Too dazed and confused to do more than watch, Braxton stared at the jewel transfixed. The simplicity and complexity that was contained within those facets was mind-boggling. As he looked closer and closer at the reflection in its surface, he saw a jumble of color that moved. It was too small to make any sense of, so he made the gem grow larger with his mind. Or maybe he grew smaller? Either way, the image became clearer.
He could see the ship slowly sinking around him. An exhausted Captain Pickerell called out commands Braxton couldn't hear, and still bucket after bucket of sea water was handed up out of the hatch and dumped. The empty bucket was then passed down as another full one came up. Braxton watched for quite a while, and then suddenly an idea struck him.
In his mind's eye, he pictured himself hovering above the ship, looking down on it.
The gem was still there in front of him, but the void vanished from around him, and he was just as he was in his mind. Now outside in the evening air, hovering over the ship, he lowered himself through the hatch, weaving his misty form around Vinston-Fret and Sorrell, then Big H and Cryelos, until he was inside the hold where the breach was.
After looking at it for a while, he stretched his misty form out and slipped through the hole into the sea. He then flattened himself and pressed his form back against the ship over the hole from the outside.
At first, he tried to hold his breath, but he eventually realized his body still lay passed out beside Nixy, and was breathing just fine. This made it easier to keep his flattened form over the hole. Maintaining this state took all his mental power, and he hoped they would get close to land soon. He imagined that, if anything were to break his concentration, water would start pouring back in immediately. He was especially afraid of Nixy waking again and wanting more, for if she did, then his mind would be hers.
Suclair woke with a start. She felt Braxton's magic and she somehow understood what he was doing, even if she didn't know how he was doing it. First, she ran across the compartment and looked into he and Nixy's area. She was flushed with embarrassment when she found them both naked and spent, but she was satisfied she had time enough to do what needed doing. Up on deck, Darblin tried to explain that water had stopped coming in, but that the hole was still there. One of the elves was cursing him as drunk, but he swore he hadn't had a drink since the creature attacked. Suclair's arrival saved a fight, for Darblin didn't take lightly to having his word doubted.
"Shut your mouths!" Suclair yelled. In the moment of silent shock that followed, she spoke to Captain Pickerell as fast as she could. "Get the ship's carpenter down there as quickly as possible. Braxton's magical boundary could fail at any moment."
Captain Pickerell wasted no time getting the dwarves and elves back to work bailing. The carpenter would need to coat the wood around the hole with tar and more water had to be bailed in order to give him the clearance he would need. By the time he got there and began slinging half-heated pitch on the planks, the others had reduced the water level below the hole. Planks were brought down and nailed across the breach in a crude but effective manner, and then more pitch was splashed and brushed over the whole area.
They were done doing what they could do, but some water was still coming in from another smaller breach. Two men bailing steadily were able to keep up with that leak, though. The captain declared the ship had a fair chance of limping to shore without sinking, but the true test wouldn't come until Braxton removed his magical seal from the ship to see if the carpenter's work could withstand the wrath of the sea.
To be safe, they all decided not to disturb Braxton in hopes he could hold out until land was sighted.
If he could have held out that long, they'd never know because Nixy couldn't. She woke up not long after the carpenter was done, and before any of them could tell her not to, she climbed back on top of Braxton and effectively removed him from the void with the distraction of her body.
Suclair didn't bother to tell them that the ship wasn't sinking anymore. They didn't find out until they reported for bailing duty and were told to go back to bed by the soaking wet, and very irritated, prince of the dwarves, who had slept in the half-soaked floor of the lower hold in order not to disturb the young lovers.
Chapter Twenty Eight
The rock troll wasted no time attacking Dendle, though it's first move wasn't actually to attack. Instead, it reached down, palming a jagged rock that was as big as Dendle's head. At first, Dendle thought the pale gray-colored troll would hurl the stone at him, but it didn't. It lunged with unbelievable speed and raked its other clawed hand at him.
Jagged nails passed through the air only a hair's breadth from Dendle's face, and before Dendle's sword could come around, the troll recoiled, moving to its left, causing Dendle to have to shift his position awkwardly. When Dendle turned, the arm holding the rock swung around at him.
Dendle was lucky. Due to the troll's larger size, its aim was high. Dendle barely had to duck to get under what would have
been a crushing blow.
Now frustrated, as well as angry, the troll let a ferocious roar out of its slobbery, broken-toothed maw. Its huge forehead creased, and its nostrils flared. When it lunged it stopped short, tricking Dendle into thinking it was repeating its previous attack. This time, it threw the rock right into Dendle's chest.
Dendle was somewhat protected from the blow by the thin metal chest plate that was sewn into his leather armor. Still, the force of the impact smashed all the breath from his lungs, and sent him reeling backwards until he finally stumbled over something and ended up flat on his back.
For the first time in the confrontation, Dendle felt fear. He might have bitten off more than he could chew, and he knew he had to get this over with or make a hasty retreat and hope the superior creature didn't follow him. He could always come back later for the head of the other troll.
He caught his breath and barely rolled out of the way of the creature's next hurled stone. He pushed his fear back down. Pride was at stake here. He'd come for a battle, and he decided he wasn't going to run before it got started.
As he scrambled to his feet, he switched his heavy sword to his left hand and snatched up a fist sized stone of his own. He hurled the rock right at the troll's head.
To Dendle's surprise, it impacted the troll's mouth, breaking a few more of its rotted teeth and busting its lips wide open.
The troll screamed out in defiance, spraying bloody mist out into the cool evening air. A stark crimson swath poured over its chin and down its chest. The troll's eyes glowed with its anger. It showed no sign of fear, and even less concern for its injuries when it came at Dendle the third time.
Dendle brought his sword to bare on the beast. With a two-handed grip, he swung with all the strength he could muster at the troll's midsection. The troll was angry, but not foolish. It arched its back, barely pulling its abdomen out of the blade's path. Having slung its arms forward to do this, though, it took a terrible blow. The sword sliced a thick layer of meat cleanly off the beast from just above its left wrist, all the way up to the crook of its knobby elbow.
The troll must not have immediately felt any pain, for it swung a roundhouse blow with its other fist that caught Dendle in the temple and lifted him off his feet. His whole body was carried around with the twist of the troll's motion. He and his weapon separated, both of them landing hard and tumbling across the rocks.
When Dendle regained consciousness, he immediately got to his feet and searched for his sword. His instincts told him to survive at all costs. It took a while for his head to clear enough to realize the wounded creature had fled, and even longer before he figured out that it was almost full dark. After he gathered his wits, he was able to sense the creature in the distance, moving away from him.
He decided he needed to eat and drink for he was famished. He thought about forgoing the salted, dried beef he had for the meat of a fresh kill, but when his keen sense of smell caught a whiff of the other troll's stinking corpse, his stomach roiled and he changed his mind.
After he satisfied his hunger, he hacked off the rock troll's head and put it in an oil cloth sack and tied it up tightly with a leather cord. He knew better than to carry it with him while he stalked the troll he'd wounded. He decided the safest place for it was off the ground. He went upslope and found a tree and tied his prize to a higher branch that no kobl or ground feeder could reach.
The oil cloth would protect the head from birds for a while, but a hungry crow or a blood raven would eventually shred its way in. Dendle didn't plan on leaving it that long, though, as he was sure the wounded rock troll wouldn't make it far, bleeding as it was. With his ability to travel swiftly at night Dendle could cover a lot of ground in a short period of time.
To make sure he found the right tree when he returned, he made several rock piles in shapes that he would be able to recognize. Not that any passersby were likely, but the gold value of the head made his caution override reason.
The autumn air in the higher elevations was chilly, and the soft breeze kept his skin cool as he ran as fast as he could over rocks and under branches in the pale light provided by the larger of the two moons. In order to keep his movement unencumbered, he'd left his bow in the tree and strapped his sword down his back. His legs churned through the soft gravelly forest floor, and found sure traction on the rockier ledges and outcroppings as he followed the foul scent of troll blood. Once he topped the ridge, he sensed the creature was already across the valley and halfway up the next rise. This amazed him for he'd removed most of its forearm, and it had surely lost a massive amount of blood. He'd seen plenty of it splashed across the rocks and brushed onto branches and leaves along the way.
Knowing it had left him unconscious, Dendle wasn't sure why the creature was pressing on so hard. As far as he could see, it wasn't even showing signs of fatigue yet. It had no reason to flee like it was. It didn't make sense.
Dendle started to feel the effects of the previous night's sparse slumber and the exhausting battle he'd fought already. He decided a good rest would do him some good. Certainly, the troll couldn't keep up its current pace. He was sure he could catch up with it on the morrow and take it out with minimal effort, if it even lived that long.
He made a good-sized fire because he knew he would sleep heavily and wanted the added protection the light would bring. He laid down with his sword beside him, and when sleep finally took him, he fell into its welcoming grasp. He slept so deeply that he didn't wake until the kobls were already on him. Only the magical reflexes afforded him by the cat's eye ring allowed him to react fast enough to avoid being killed.
With uncanny precision, he grabbed the kobl nearest him by the throat. He rose and threw it across his body in a motion that sent it rolling into another one of the hungry vermin. He didn't have time to wonder why these creatures were bold enough to brave his firelight because when he got to his feet, another kobl darted in from behind, leaping for his back.
Dendle was so much larger than the creature that shrugging it off wasn't a problem, but as it went flinging away, one of its claws ripped a gouge across Dendle's cheek. The kobl wasn't fast enough after it hit the ground to get clear of Dendle's blade, and the gargling howl it let out was ended with a stomp of Dendle's boot.
There were three more kobls he could see circling the edge of the fire light, but it was the ones he could only sense, out beyond the light, that had him worried. In his life, Dendle had killed hundreds of kobls and until now had never gotten as much as a scratch from the filthy things. These had drawn his blood and, as he lashed out at the nearest one, he let out a deep guttural battle call that sounded so gothican it startled even him.
His blade punctured his first target below the ribs and slid sideways out of it. The creature yelped and rolled away from the fire’s light, most of its guts spilling on the rocks as it went. The sound of snarling, gnashing teeth, and clacking jaws came from all sides as he turned in a slow cautious circle to keep the remaining kobls near him in view.
He knew there were more of them out in the darkness, and that now is when they would probably attack. Just as the thought finished in his mind, it happened. While the two he was focused on tried to hold his attention, more came leaping out of the darkness. Dendle swung with all his strength in an arc that would've carried his sword in a sweeping circle all the way around him if it hadn't stuck into the body of one of the creatures. Luckily, it had already cleaved another one in two.
Still holding his sword, and most of the weight of the yelping creature that it was stuck in, Dendle swung again. The kobl on his blade slung free and smashed into one of its pack mates. Dendle's blow fell short of its intended target, but the lack of resistance on his blade caused him to spin around just in time to duck the other creature's raking claw. A quick twist allowed him to pull his sword's edge across that creature's skin, and it fell into a heap at his feet. Now, Dendle could only sense one other kobl around him. This one gave out an angry howl that was followed by a series
of sharp staccato barks. The call was answered from a great distance. When Dendle made to go after it, it was gone.
It was all he could do to keep from falling into a heap of exhaustion, but Dendle knew he had to clean the wound on his face fast, well before it had the chance to fester. He would rather die being eaten alive by a pack of the mangy vermin than face the slow agonizing end that an infection would bring. He took his time, using the fire's light and all the water he had left to cleanse his torn cheek of any grime the claw left behind.
The sun was coming up somewhere beyond the ridge that stole the horizon from his view. Dendle walked for a while until he found a large rock he was sure the kobls couldn't reach the top of, at least not without waking him. It took all the energy he had left to climb it. When he did, he rolled to his back and fell fast asleep.
When he woke, it was well past midday. He reached out, trying to sense the movement of the rock troll, or any other kobls, but couldn't. This didn't surprise him. The creature he tracked was surely over the next ridge, or dead. Either way, it didn't matter, he could still follow its scent trail.
After eating most of the salted meat he had left, he started down into the valley in hopes of finding a stream to fill his empty water skins and wash his wound again.
To call what he found a stream was a stretch, but there was an area where the trickle of water had pooled. In it, he studied his reflection, taking in the misshapen swelling along the side of his head where the rock troll had hammered him to the ground. The kobl scratch looked clean and pink and showed no signs of infection.
Overall, he looked pretty rough with lumpy purple bruises on one side of his face and a scabbing tear on the other. He knelt to fill his skins and was thankful he didn't feel as bad as he looked. After drinking deeply and washing his wound again, he followed the stench of the rock troll up the other side of the valley. As he neared the ridge, he hoped he would find a corpse that had bled out, but when he topped the rise what he saw frightened him so badly he dropped to the ground, not daring to move a muscle.
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