That part, at least, I could test.
“It’s about time you arrived,” I said, testily, my hands folded across my chest.
The big, black eyes looked at me thoughtfully for a moment, when the thing brought its bulk to a halt. Far more thoughtfully than an ordinary troll would.
“It takes a while to get here,” he answered. “I appreciate you waiting.” The voice was deep and slow, but spoke Narasi with a perfect accent.
“May I ask exactly why you came all this way?”
“It’s my job,” he said, shrugging in a very non-trollish manner. “When I’m called, I go.”
“And when you arrive,” I asked, “then what?”
“I see what needs to be done. Then I do it.”
“I applaud your work ethic,” I said, looking for ways to stall. It wasn’t that I had a particular plan, I was just trying to find an angle, a weakness. So far, it wasn’t looking good. “It’s rare in one of your folk.”
“You’re probably used to the young ones,” he chuckled, almost human-like. “They’re not too bright. Takes a whipping to get them moving.”
“It’s much the same with our lads in their youth,” I agreed. “Like the world owes them a living. No appreciation for honest toil.”
“Isn’t that the truth?” he asked, leaning on his spear. “No pride in their work.”
“So what, in your professional opinion, is the task to be done, now that you’ve arrived?”
“Well, I’ve been charged with keeping the bounds clear of interlopers,” he said, conversationally.
“What kind of interlopers? Surely you don’t go chasing after every fox, hare, and woodcutter who stumbles through?”
“No, no,” he chuckled. “Are you serious? I’d be running hither and yon all day, if that was the case. No, I only go seek out the serious threats.”
“And what constitutes a serious threat?”
“Say, a humani mage poking around places he shouldn’t, letting his curiosity get him into trouble.”
“I beg your pardon – say, I didn’t get your name?”
“Dargarin,” he said, nodding congenially. “A pleasure. And you?”
“Minalan,” I bowed. “The same. In any case, Sir Dargarin, I must take issue with your charge, then. I am not merely poking around. I aim to go within the barrier.”
“See? That’s not allowed,” he said, shaking his head, sadly. “That’s why I’m here. To dissuade you.”
“I wish to see the sacred baths of Ishi, which legend says lie within Sartha Wood. I am newly wed, and the baths are said to be powerful aids to fertility.”
“A noble cause,” he conceded. “And it is true, Ishi once made use of the springs, it is said. Before my time,” he grunted. “But unless you have permission, you can’t go in.”
“And from whom might I secure permission?”
“That’s not for me to say,” he admitted, scratching his scraggly face. “The fact that you have to ask tells me you don’t have permission.”
“And what if I tried to enter without permission?”
“Oh, it would be bad,” he nodded. “Very bad. Confounding mists, restless spirits, malicious spells – I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“You do make some compelling arguments,” I had to agree. “None of that sounds pleasant. Yet I’ve taken a sacred vow to bathe in the springs, to insure my first born is a son. How can I walk away from a sacred vow?”
“That’s between your soul and your gods,” he decided, after a moment’s thought. “Don’t have much use for either of them, myself.”
“Well, if that’s the kind of danger I’m facing,” I reasoned, “doesn’t that make your job redundant?”
“I like to think of me more as an auxiliary to the barrier,” he countered. “It is a passive defense. I’m more active.”
“Yet I still don’t understand why I cannot go through.”
“It is forbidden.”
“Yes, but why?”
He shrugged again, his coat of iron plates clanking mutely. “I don’t really care. I have my orders.”
I sighed. “Again, I can’t fault you for your work ethic. But I must ask, if you don’t care about why you are to actively forbid me to go through the barrier in fulfillment of holy vow, then what compels you to do so?”
“Duty? Honor? The satisfaction of a job well-done?” he considered. “All of these and none, perhaps. The truth is, I like to be useful, and someone found me a good use. It’s light work, good grub, and I get to walk through the forest a lot. It’s pretty,” he observed, looking around.
“I cannot argue with that,” I conceded. “It really is pretty. Especially with the ruins in the background.”
“Yes, I like to come here and just stand, sometimes. Just . . . be.”
“You know, you aren’t like any troll I’ve met before.”
“There are only a few like me – old enough to have gotten beyond the impetuous violence stage. Most of us don’t make it past adolescence, you know.”
“Really? Why? Angry villagers? Vengeful knights errant?”
“Nah,” he dismissed, leaning on his spear, “young trolls are apt to fits of impetuous violence. Old trolls are apt to very deliberate and highly destructive fits of violence. The subtlety is lost on the young and stupid,” he reflected. “Only a few are wise enough to survive. The ones that do . . . well, we tend to be very, very dangerous. And occasionally well-read.”
“Well read? You read?” I asked, surprised.
“Well, it’s not that difficult, once you get the grasp of it. Every now and then some scholar or sage or loremaster wanders up here looking for the gods alone know what, and I have to . . . contend with them. Sometimes they have the most interesting books in their personal effects. Narasi, Perwyneese, Old High Perwyneese, Farisi, Hvecti, Old Imperial, I can read it all,” he said, proudly.
“That is perhaps the most fascinating thing I’ve heard all week,” I admitted. “And it’s been an eventful week. Say, what if I promised you that I’d bring you a bunch of books if you looked the other way while you scooted across the barrier?”
He shook his head. “It’s not that I’m not open to a bribe, you see – I’m a reasonable enough troll. But I’m accountable for this. I can’t risk such a cozy assignment. Not for a couple of books.”
“No, I can see that. But . . . well . . .”
He suddenly grinned. “Oh! You’re stalling!” he realized.
“Well, uh, yes,” I admitted, guiltily. “I suppose I am. It’s such a pretty day, and the woods are so beautiful I would hate to mess them up with blood.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” he dismissed. “It happens all the time. Two, three weeks there won’t be any sign left of your body.” He spoke with the authority of someone who knew from personal experience.
“Well, I also hate to rush into anything,” I said. “And I’m still hoping I can convince you to look the other way.”
“You can try,” he conceded. “But the fact is, I’m stalling, too.”
Again, I was surprised. “Why are you stalling?”
“Because there are two more of my mates on the way,” he chuckled, “and I’d hate to start without them. It can get boring, this job. If you run out of things to read, the odd bit of violence is really your only entertainment.”
My spine froze. One well-armored, well-armed literate troll was bad enough . . . but three? I thought of Alya, hiding under a cloak a dozen yards away. How could I protect her against three trolls? How could I protect myself from three trolls? I was pretty anxious about the one.
“Well, that does alter our circumstance, then,” I sighed, drawing Twilight. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to impose on you to begin before they arrive.”
“Aww!” he said, mockingly, “they’re going to be so disappointed!”
“Serves them right for being slowcoaches,” I grunted.
He picked up his spear. “I’ll give you one last chance to walk away from the place,” he offered, graciously. �
��You seem like a nice enough fellow, Minalan.”
“Likewise, Dargarin. At your convenience,” I said, saluting with my mageblade.
He didn’t dally. In moments that sword-length spearhead was slashing at my face. I parried, but while the boulder I was standing on put me more or less at the same height as Dargarin, it did so at the expense of mobility. And fighting against a spear made mobility a treasure.
But I wasn’t defenseless. While I parried, I cast a couple of simple offensive spells at the troll, just to see what would happen. Unfortunately, my suspicions were confirmed when he shrugged them off instead of collapsing in pain. Dargarin was magically protected.
I leapt to avoid a nasty slash at my thighs, and abandoned the boulder with a diving roll into the loamy underbrush and sprang to my feet, engaging my warmagic augmentation spells as I did so. Suddenly everything around me seemed to move much more slowly, and I had a lot more leisure to plan my attack.
Or so I thought. As I was moving in to stab the big lug’s unprotected shin, I could feel a surge of power from him . . . and then he was moving as fast as I was. His mammoth spear blade blocked my attack deftly. That did give me the opportunity to reach out with my left hand, slap the haft of the weapon just behind the head, and activate a spell I’d prepared with the green knights in mind.
If Dargarin was protected by magic, his spear was not. The five-inch-thick log grew dry and brittle in his hands, and snapped into dust and splinters with his next swing.
“Well done!” he chortled as his useless spearhead went flying.
“Thank you!” I called, automatically. I didn’t let his congeniality get in the way of trying to take his head off, as he stood unarmed. Unfortunately, his head was out of range, and my blow skidded harmlessly off of his enchanted armor while he backpedaled through the forest.
He got his hand on that vicious-looking morning star all too quickly. I realized I should have let him keep the spear.
Fighting against a morning star is tricky. They aren’t particularly good at blocking or parrying, and they aren’t particularly precise weapons . . . but in the hands of someone who knows how to use one, when they do land they do a lot of damage. This one was half the size of my head, and the haft was an iron-shod oak log eight inches thick. The iron chain was the real problem, though. Not only did it give Dargarin’s blows far more leverage, it was easily long enough to enwrap and entangle a sword.
The troll began swinging it in slow, dangerous-looking circles. He seemed extremely comfortable with the weapon. I stood there, ready, trying to figure out how to get past that swirling chain and its brutal head.
“Ready to reconsider?”
“No, I’m just anticipating how nice that hot spring will feel, after this.” I ran against him again. The morning star swung gracefully around, but Dargarin deftly snapped his wrist and made the lethal ball of iron spikes change direction with frightening speed. I narrowly avoided the thing as it buried itself into the ground, inches from my feet.
I sprayed the trolls face with a flaring cantrip, and he grunted in discomfort as he pulled his weapon back out of the ground, but I was still at a loss for how to attack him. I spouted fire at his chest with a spell from Twilight, but he shrugged it off. That did get him angry, though.
“Hey!” he blared. “No catching the forest on fire!”
“Sorry!” I called, as he stomped on a flaming patch with his mighty boot. “I’ll be more considerate in the future!”
“You don’t have much future left,” he grunted, as he whirled back around, weapon in hand.
The spell had been ineffective, but it had given me an idea. I hit him with a few more flaring cantrips, just to distract him, while I circled around and quietly cast another spell on the ground a few yards away, between two rocks and a conveniently-placed hemlock.
It was a lot easier this time, thanks to the robust power of my new sphere, than the time in Boval when I employed it against the first goblin shaman I ever faced in battle. I hadn’t even used the Alka Alon spells for it, just plain ol’ spellmongering. But when I maneuvered Dargarin back with some inspired swordwork, his left leg sunk into the earth up to his thigh, earning me a shocked look. With a thought I concluded the spell, and the troll was half-buried in the dirt.
“Hey!” he bellowed. “No fair!”
“I just changed the density of the soil for a moment,” I pointed out. “Even a big guy like you will have a hard time wiggling out of that!”
“Damn it!” he gasped, after a moment’s struggle. “You really caught me!” He quickly picked his morning star back up and began to swing it warily. He couldn’t move, which made him particularly vulnerable, and the decrease in his height brought him down to eye level. Of course he was still one big damn slab of troll under thick, enchanted armor, so the prospect of simply walking up and cutting his throat was meager.
“Sorry, but I really have to take that bath,” I said, “and I didn’t feel right slaying you, for some reason.”
“Well, I appreciate the consideration, but this doesn’t change much,” he growled. “I can hear one of my mates approaching, now. Theridald, if I’m any judge.”
I gazed in the direction he indicated. Sure enough, there was a stirring in the treetops a quarter-mile or so away, and it was heading toward me at a good pace.
“Shit!” I swore. “Any advice?”
“Reconsider your desire for a bath,” he said, after some thought.
I left him alone, struggling against the soil that bound him. I quickly ran back to where Alya was crouched and quietly told her to keep still – I had dealt with one troll, but there was another on the way. She grunted a response and I left, pausing only long enough to cast an unnoticability spell over her.
I met Theridald a hundred yards from the Elf’s Gate, finding a small clearing where I might be able to maneuver. Theridald was, apparently, not gifted with the same devotion to his duty as Dargarin, as he loped along with a lackadaisical gait, a massive double-bladed, double-handed axe the size of a wagon wheel hung on his shoulder, making him look like a peasant with a hoe. He seemed completely at ease, which did not bode well for my future, and when he saw me his face broke into a wide grin.
“Splendid!” he boomed, slowing a bit, but otherwise not reacting to my presence. “Here I thought this would be a false alarm!”
“I’ve already eliminated Dargarin,” I warned him, boldly, Twilight in both hands in front of me. “Fight me at your peril.”
“You killed Dargarin?” he asked in disbelief, halting suddenly.
“No!” Dargarin called from his earthy bonds, out of sight but clearly within trollish hearing. “He just tricked me with magic!”
“Magic!” Theridald said, uneasily. His axe found its way into his mighty fists, and he waved the huge iron head around like it was made of paper. “I don’t have no truck with magic!”
I thought about correcting his double negative, but considering Theridald was easily the second smartest troll I’d ever met, I didn’t have the heart. “Yes, magic,” I said with my best glaring look. “It was over in moments. I spared your friend’s life, since he was gracious enough to converse with me first. I’ll offer him the same bribe I offered you: what would make you look the other way while I assay the barrier?”
Theridald froze and thought about it. “Bribe?”
“Yes, a bribe,” I said. “What would you like? What would it take?”
He waited so long that I started to think that he had forgotten the question. Then he snorted and shrugged. “I got everything I want,” he decided. “Good food, good job, kind masters . . . and I get to bash people every once in a while. That’s what I want.” To emphasize his point he gave his axe a couple of impressive practice swings. As large as it was, he swung it so effortlessly and so fast that the blades whistled through the air.
“Gods,” I breathed. “You really know how to use that thing!”
“Why, thank you!” he boomed, proudly. “I can fell a mighty o
ak with one little swing”
I snorted. “Now that might be stretching the truth a bit, don’t you think, Sir Theridald?”
He looked at me defiantly, his beady eyes suddenly angry. “You doubt my word?”
“Oh, you cut the air most deftly,” I agreed. “But when it comes to your boast, well, consider me skeptical. Dargarin, maybe. You?” I asked. In truth Dargarin probably outweighed this troll by a few hundred pounds at most, but I had a feeling that trolls might be sensitive to such criticism. I was correct.
Theridald put his axe blade on the ground and leaned on it. “Go ahead. Pick out a tree.”
“What? That won’t be necessary,” I said. “I would hate to embarrass you, after what you claimed. Let’s just get to the fighting.”
The Spellmonger's Honeymoon: A Spellmonger Novella (The Spellmonger Series) Page 11