He'd spend the night camped out anyway. He found a clearing far enough away from the site to not be easily located and landed his ship. The comm beeped at him. It was Rhundi.
"You're fighting a troll," she said.
Grond nearly laughed. "Do you have a nanocloud following me or something? Is there a bug in my clothes somewhere? How do you do that?"
"Don't worry about it," she said. "But yeah: Prescott's buddy is using a troll as his second. His name is Romnes dor Aatic din Krevaar. I've got the girls seeing what else they can find on him."
"I didn't think trolls fought," Grond said. He tried to remember if he'd ever fought one in the pits before and couldn't come up with one. The only troll he'd ever known well was Irtuus-bon, and Irtuus-bon was certainly no fighter.
"About that," Rhundi said. "Irtuus-bon wanted to talk to you, actually. Mind if I comm him in?"
"Sure," Grond said. There was a muted click and then he could hear the troll's heavy breathing at the other end of the connection.
"Grond," Irtuus-bon said. "Trolls are generally … not warriors."
"Tell me something I don't know, Irtuus-bon," Grond said. "I've met you. Neither you nor Sirrys could lay a finger on me if your lives depended on it." Irtuus-bon's full name was Sirrys ban Irtuus bon Alaamac. Trolls were shapechangers, and their different preferred forms generally had— or, at least, seemed to have— different dominant personalities and answered to different names. Sirrys was Irtuus-bon's shortest, widest form, and was childish, whiny, and petulant. The troll was far from Grond's favorite of Rhundi's employees, but he greatly preferred Irtuus-bon's company to Sirrys'.
"You have not … met Alaamac, yet," Irtuus-bon said. "And you should hope that you never do." His voice deepened and roughened on the last few words, and Grond imagined the troll struggling to keep his own body together on the other end of the conversation.
"What's that mean?" he said.
"That my people are rarely entirely what they seem," Irtuus-bon answered. "Do not allow yourself to be surprised by this Romnes dor Aatic din Krevaar. I do not know of him, and I can find no information about him. This … disquiets me."
"I'll be careful," Grond said. I can't believe I'm uneasy about fighting ONE troll, he thought.
"Please do," Irtuus-bon replied. "The mistress will not admit it, but she would be … highly put out were you not to return."
Grond chuckled. "Any idea what the terms of the duel are going to be?"
"Submission," Rhundi said. "But being dead means you submitted. So don't kill him unless you have to. But kill him if you have to. I probably don't need to tell you that."
"Nah," Grond said. That meant that the fight was probably going to be hand-to-hand, since weapons tended to be more lethal than fists. That was fine. He hadn't come out here to die anyway. "I'll be fine, Rhundi. You know that better than anyone. I'm on stake-out for the rest of the night, so don't comm me unless it's an emergency."
"Will do," she said, and disconnected. Grond grabbed his thermal utilicloak from the ship's small closet and threw it over his shoulders. It was time to find somewhere to hide out for the night.
* * *
The night passed uneventfully, and Grond met Prescott and another human outside the amphitheater as soon as he saw them arrive.
"What did you need me for?" he asked, eyeing the other human. He was nearly Prescott's exact opposite, standing just under two meters tall and muscular for his size.
"My partner, Stellan," Prescott said. The other man nodded. "He doesn't fight."
"He should think about starting," Grond said, shaking hands with the man. "I could probably teach him a few things."
"I'm the brains of the operation," Stellan said.
Prescott elbowed Stellan in the side. "He insisted on coming. Pay no attention to him."
Grond shrugged. "Whatever you want. I hear I'm fighting a troll."
"Rhundi?" Prescott asked.
"Yup," Grond said.
"Shit, she coulda let me know," Prescott said. "How the hell does Rhundi have better contacts on my planet than I do?"
Grond shrugged again. "You've known her about as long as I have," he said.
"Longer, I think," Prescott said. He pointed. "There," he said, and a silver dartship flew into view. "They'll be here soon. You got anything you need to do to … I dunno, get ready?"
"Nah," Grond said, rolling his neck. "Just let me know when the punching starts. I'll be ready."
"You'd better be," Prescott said.
* * *
Banik turned out to be a dapper, handsome sort of human, average height, well into adulthood, with caramel-colored skin and a teased-out shock of wiry black hair. He wore a maroon long-sleeved robe and stepped off of his ship with a snarl on his face. The troll followed. It looked much like Irtuus-bon: a sharp, hooked nose and pointed chin, a stiff shock of strawlike hair atop his head, and rolls of warty, purplish skin everywhere on his body. He was in his shortest form at the moment, assuming dwarflike proportions of just over a meter tall and nearly the same width. He looked both larger and heavier than Sirrys. He would probably be taller than Irtuus-bon in that corresponding form as well.
"This is your champion?" Banik spat. "A halfogre?"
"Grond," Grond answered. "And yeah, I'm a halfogre."
"How much did he buy you for?" the man asked.
So that's how it's gonna be, huh?
Grond allowed himself to smile. Very, very slowly, showing his teeth.
"Nah," he said. "I'm a freelancer. Means I ain't gotta follow the rules unless I decide I want to. Worst thing that happens is I lose out on a little bit of money."
He clenched a fist, loudly cracking his knuckles. Banik's eyes flickered toward his hand and his composure broke just for a moment.
"Let's get this over with," Prescott said. "You got anybody else with you?"
"Just this," Banik said, and gestured over his shoulder. A telepresence 'bot walked off the ship.
"The Wonder of Transcendence will be recording the proceedings," he said.
Grond, carefully arranging his weapons on the ground next to Prescott, laughed out loud. He found himself really hoping to be able to use the war axe. "That's the stupidest fucking name for a ship I've ever heard," he said.
Banik ignored the jab. "No blades or guns. The loser shall be the one who submits first, or is first unable to continue the fight."
"Got it," Grond said, and tossed a handful of dirt into the troll's eyes.
* * *
The first few seconds of the fight were savage, as Grond took advantage of his opponent's blindness and pounded the reeling troll in the head for all he was worth, hoping to end the duel quickly.
It didn't work. Grond had punched hundreds of skulls in his lifetime, but the rubbery way his fists contacted the troll's head were like nothing he'd ever experienced. The troll went down, but just shook its head and stood back up, wiping a quick hand across its eyes to clear the dirt out.
And it smiled at him, a tiny trickle of blood leaking from a contusion on one cheek.
"Hey," Grond said. "That's my move."
"This one's mine," the troll said, and punched him from two meters away, lengthening his arms in an eyeblink to hit Grond in the chin.
Right, the halfogre thought to himself. Shapechanger. This was going to be interesting. He was used to fighting people whose reach he could anticipate. The troll kept its distance, using its long arms, sending a flurry of punches and kicks toward Grond's head and torso, too quick for the halfogre to react to them.
Almost too quick, at least. Romnes dor Aatic din Krevaar swept a leg at Grond's ankles, trying to knock the big halfogre off his feet. Grond leapt over the swinging limb and landed heavily on the troll's ankle. With any other species, the ankle would have broken badly and the fight would effectively have been over. The troll was unable to free its foot, but the expected snap didn't happen. Grond improvised, grabbing Romnes' thin leg in one hand and yanking the troll toward him.
> He obliged, shrinking his legs and using the momentum to ram both fists into Grond's eyes. The world flashed and Grond landed flat on his back, the troll now towering over him. Grond rolled backwards and away from his opponent, now working on keeping his distance.
Can't knock him out. Can't break his joints. Hmm.
This was going so well.
The troll rushed him. Grond kept his center of gravity low and tried to hit him in the chest with a forearm, hoping to take the fight to the ground. Romnes dor Aatic din Krevaar shrunk his torso underneath Grond's arm and then came right back up again, hitting him in the chin with an uppercut fierce enough to rattle Grond's teeth. Grond caught the troll's extended arm by the elbow and pounded him under the ribs three times, blows that would probably have killed a human adversary. The troll shrieked in pain, the first sound he had made during the fight.
Organs. Gotcha. He wrenched Aatic-din's arm behind his back and took a few shots at his other kidney. The troll put a foot on Grond's knee and pushed away from him, wrenching his arm from Grond's grip. Grond dodged away from his counterattack and feinted another swing at his head. The troll took the bait, trying to shrink his head out of the way again, and was rewarded with an kick straight into his chin, a blow that staggered him badly, nearly costing him his footing.
A moment later, he changed shape again. This form was mid-sized, but powerfully muscled, and Grond watched as the troll's excess skin slid and hardened, forming plates of stiff armor over the vulnerable areas he had been targeting. His teeth lengthened, too, and foamy saliva began leaking from his lips.
"Oh, come on," Grond said. "Poison? Are you serious?"
"The rules were no blades or guns," Krevaar said. "Poison is none of those things."
"Right," Grond said. Yeah, this is definitely going well.
It was clear immediately that Krevaar was going to fight differently than either of the troll's other forms. The armor plating restricted his ability to lengthen and shorten his limbs, but he was hitting much harder, and now Grond needed to avoid sharp teeth as well.
And claws, he thought, as Krevaar barely missed him with an outstretched hand, tearing small furrows into his chest. The wounds burned. The troll's new claws were apparently poisonous as well.
Fuck this. The troll had changed the rules. It was time for him to do the same. He maneuvered himself in between the troll and Prescott, then leapt backwards, scooping Angela off the ground.
Banik had time to open his mouth, no doubt to complain about Grond's rule-breaking, before the halfogre fired two quick shots from the longbow.
Both struck the Wonder of Transcendence's telepresence 'bot, one shot taking its head off and the other reducing its torso to a smoking wreck. The troll stood up, uncertainly, its arms held out to its side.
"No guns," it said. Banik's mouth moved but no sound came out. Prescott and Stellan were quietly laughing.
Grond dropped Angela and walked to the telepresence 'bot. He grabbed one of its arms and twisted, wrenching it free of the wrecked torso.
"We're still fighting, by the way," he said, and smacked the troll across the face with the arm. The troll went down hard, and Grond hit it several more times for good measure, dropping the arm on top of his crumpled body when he was done.
He looked carefully. Hard to tell if he was breathing, since the leathery armor didn't move much.
"I think he lost," he said.
"You cheated," Banik said.
"Really?" Grond said, picking the arm back up. "This ain't a blade or a gun. This is clearly an arm. I was using my arms and you weren't complaining. This is just somebody else's. Perfectly fair."
"I demand satisfaction—" the man sputtered. Grond hit him in the face with the arm, enjoying the visceral crunch as his lower jaw shattered.
"I'm pretty satisfied," he said. "Prescott? You satisfied?"
"Plenty," Prescott said. "That was worth the money he owed me."
Grond grabbed Banik by the front of his robe, lifting him off the ground, and carried him over to the troll. He wrapped a hand around the unconscious troll's ankle and dragged him along with them to Banik's ship.
"This boat looks expensive," he said to Banik, who was whimpering and trying to hold his face together. "I bet you've got access to some decent painkillers in there that will keep you from screaming too much while it flies you home. I think my friend just inherited a restaurant. Nod if you agree. Don't try to talk."
Banik nodded.
"Good," he said. "You understand I can come back if you cause any more trouble."
Banik nodded again.
"Bye now," he said, dropping him on the ground. "You can get your buddy here aboard yourself. Or just leave him here. I don't care."
He turned and walked back to Prescott and Stellan.
"Prescott says you don't fight," he said to Stellan, who nodded. "Any chance you're good at chess?"
* * *
The Ziggurat of Zaumg
"That is not what I meant," Brazel said.
"You told Rhundi you wanted a change of pace," Grond said. "This is a change of pace. We have never, ever done anything like this before."
"A change of pace is like a vacation, or something fun," Brazel complained. "No part of that looks like any fun at all."
"I think it's pretty," Grond said.
The two of them were standing in the open cargo hold of the Nameless, which was hovering about fifty meters above the ground. Untamed forest spread to the horizon in every direction. Everywhere they looked was green.
Except for the giant brass ziggurat sitting in front of them. Not only was the ziggurat not green, it was shining. And bare. There wasn't a leaf or a weed, even a scratch, anywhere they could see.
"There are no paths in this forest," Brazel continued to complain. The gnome ran his hands through his arm fur, smoothing it and trying to hide the most obvious signs of his agitation. "Nothing's been near here for years. And I bet there's not so much as an insect on that thing. That's not natural."
He glared at Grond, his halfogre partner. It was a tricky thing to do, as they were both standing and Grond was nearly twice his height. "I am a thief. I am a smuggler. I am, on occasion, an outside agitator. I am not a treasure hunter."
"You didn't have to take the job," Grond noted. The halfogre had a broad grin on his face. He was baiting Brazel, and the gnome knew full well that this particular job was more to Grond's liking than his own. "Not everyone can raid ziggurats. Not everyone can say ziggurat."
"Why can't they just say temple? Or pyramid? This looks like a pyramid."
"Pyramids have sloped sides. This has levels," Grond said. "That's the difference."
"Oh, shut up," Brazel said. "How do we even get into this thing?"
"There's a shrine at the top," Grond said. "We start there. Don't even need to land."
THERE IS NOWHERE NEARBY WHERE LANDING IS POSSIBLE WITHOUT A BOMBING RUN, the Nameless added helpfully. I AM PERFECTLY HAPPY TO REMAIN NEARBY TO PICK YOU UP, HOWEVER.
"Well, so long as the boat's happy," Brazel said. "What the hell do I even wear for this?" Brazel, well-known for being meticulous about his appearance, was sure he had nothing in his wardrobe suitable for archaeology.
"Look on the bright side," Grond said. "Judging from the outside, there's not gonna be a speck of dust in there. At least your clothes won't get dirty."
The gnome made a rude gesture and headed for his quarters. Grond sat down, his feet dangling off the edge of the open cargo bay floor, enjoying the view.
* * *
The planet was called Khorbaarj. Rhundi hadn't been sure who had named the place, and the planet wasn't claimed by anyone. It was small, its star out-of-the-way, and other than the trees it didn't seem to have a lot of resources to offer. Rhundi had had an enormous smile on her snout when she'd called them to her office, an expression Brazel had distrusted immediately.
"How many guns should I bring?" he asked.
"Would I send my husband into danger? You kn
ow better than that," she said.
"Sending me into danger is half of what you do," Brazel retorted. "The other half is sending Grond into danger."
"That's not true at all," she answered. "You didn't fire a single shot on your last job."
Grond made a rumbling sound deep in his chest. It sounded like poorly-suppressed laughter.
"We were captured. We fought our way out with knives and sticks," Brazel snapped.
"We did. It was fun," Grond said. Having spent a good part of his life as a pitfighter, he'd spent their escape reminiscing happily about old times.
"Well, you were fine," Rhundi said. "That was the point. And if you'd followed my plan, you wouldn't have been captured."
Brazel opened his mouth to argue, then closed it again.
"So, the client. Her name's Barna. She actually lives here on Arradon."
"Local?" Brazel said, an eyebrow raised. "You usually don't deal local."
"Didn't have much of a choice," Rhundi replied. "She went to Prescott first. He said he didn't have the people for the job and kicked her our way. He was rather insistent that we take it."
Brazel left this alone. Making Prescott angry could be dangerous.
"Anyway, she fancies herself an antiquities dealer. There's a structure on some little rock outside of ogrespace that she wants some people to clean out. Anything neat you find, she'll buy at a good price."
"That sounds a bit imprecise," Grond pointed out.
"Plus a convenience fee that will pay for the Nameless' fuel and your ammunition for three months," Rhundi replied.
Tales: The Benevolence Archives, Vol. 3 Page 2