The Ancient

by R. A. Salvatore

  Neither could disagree with his assessment. Trolls milled all about the line of a dozen or so prisoners. The estimate of a score seemed inadequate indeed.

  “Call it off,” Brother Jond whispered, grabbing Bransen by the arm.

  For a moment Bransen seemed as if he would agree. But how? To their right Olconna and Crait were already settled, and too far away to be called back. And now the troll line had advanced and was right below them, barely a dozen strides away. There was no chance that they could sneak back up the hill unseen.

  Bransen motioned farther back along the troll line to a cluster of the brutes about two-thirds of the way to the end. “Hit them harder,” he whispered. Vaughna nodded, and even Brother Jond had to concede that they truly had no options here.

  They had committed. They had made their choice up on the hill. The trolls and prisoners flowed before them. They took up their weapons and set their feet under them. The first strike would be crucial.

  Olconna and Crait had already surmised the higher-than-expected count and the challenges it would bring. They crouched low behind some brush, glancing over to their left, the north, waiting for the trio to begin the assault.

  When that delayed longer than expected, the pair wondered if perhaps the added numbers had turned them about, but it was a brief consideration and nothing more, for as the largest cluster of trolls, nearly a dozen, moved under the trio’s position, Bransen and Vaughna leaped down on them, axes and that fabulous sword swinging hard.

  “Cut the back!” Crait growled, echoing their earlier conversation, when they had decided their best action to be swinging around the rear of the troll line and driving the creatures forward in to a confused muddle. The toughened old warrior leaped up and started down, but paused as soon as he realized that Olconna wasn’t moving with him. He looked at his partner, and saw that Olconna was looking past him, was looking to the south.

  “By Abelle’s skinny arse,” Crait swore when he glanced that way, when he realized that this group of trolls and prisoners was merely the lead, and that many, many more trolls were approaching from the south.

  “Be quick, for we’ve got no choice!” the old warrior yelled, and tugged at Olconna’s arm, and the two charged down at the surprised creatures below.

  The first few frenzied moments of that attack played out exactly as Bransen had hoped. He and Vaughna cut deep into the troll ranks, slashing and chopping the group apart. Any cohesion the trolls might have found in mounting a defense seemed scattered. Another troll fell before Bransen’s slashing sword.

  To the north a squeal of agony told the attackers that Jameston would not disappoint, and for a few moments all three believed that whether it was twenty or thirty or a hundred trolls the day would be fast won!

  Brother Jond’s cry brought them back to reality, though, followed as it was by shouts from Olconna and Crait.

  Bransen managed a moment’s reprieve to look that way, and his heart surely sank. Olconna was in full flight, running toward him with a look of utter desperation. Behind him, straddling a dead troll, Crait stood with his back to Bransen, his arms up to ward off a barrage of flying spears. And beyond those came the trolls, so many more trolls, running and hooting.

  “Free the prisoners!” Bransen yelled. “Give them troll weapons—anything!” He leaped toward the nearest humans as he shouted, but they shied away from him. Broken by days, weeks even, of tortured capture, not one of them appeared to be in any condition to fight. Those nearest fell to the ground, cowering, whimpering as Bransen approached.

  A pair of trolls came in hard at him, but Bransen, too full of rage at that moment, turned aside both their spears with a single downward slash of his blade. He stepped in behind it, stiffening the fingers of his left hand and thrusting them into the throat of the troll on his left while retracting his blade from the double parry and slashing it back across, sending the troll on his right spinning to the ground.

  He turned toward the south. Crait was down and squirming. Though it seemed as if he would make it, Olconna lurched suddenly and grabbed at his calf, where a spear had hit home. He stumbled down to one knee. Another spear clipped him across the side of his neck, and a fountain of red exploded about him. He fell facedown to the ground, curled and covered, groaning with pain.

  Bransen rushed back to Vaughna and Brother Jond, pressed on two sides by trolls. Hope surged in him again as he marveled at Vaughna’s prowess, at the accuracy and power of her strokes. Behind her, Brother Jond lifted his fist and sent forth a bolt of bluish lightning, cutting the air above Crait and Olconna, meeting the troll charge head-on. As he let fly the bolt, so the mob of trolls let fly a volley of rocks, filling the air with missiles. Vaughna grunted and cursed as more than one smacked her hard.

  Bransen had better luck—at first—twisting and dodging and snapping off a series of precise parries that deflected one rock, two, and then a third. With the third, though, the rock clipped aside but kept coming at him, right at his head. Bransen ducked it.

  Almost.

  It clipped him on the forehead and rebounded away. He staggered for just a moment before shaking it off. “Jameston, cover our backs!” he shouted, and started forward, going right by Vaughna. He ripped off a series of slashes and stabs that overwhelmed the nearest troll and kept on moving, determined to drive back the mob, to protect his two fallen companions.

  Another lightning bolt reached past him, slamming the lead trolls, but another rock soared in for Bransen’s head. He ducked fast to the side and came right back up.

  His bandanna and gemstone fell free.

  He took a couple more strides, more on inertia than conscious thought, and by the end of the second, he stepped awkwardly, badly twisting his ankle and knee. “What?” he tried to cry in surprise, but he only got out, “Whaaaa….”

  He knew. The Stork knew.

  Bransen staggered and stumbled. The trolls closed in on him, and he tried to lift his sword to strike. He thought of the Book of Jhest, tried to recall his lessons, tried to fight through the sudden disconnect between his body and his mind. It was too sudden, too unexpected.

  Bransen stumbled and fumbled. He dropped his sword and didn’t even know it, swinging his arm across as if he still held the blade. A rock smacked him in the face. The nearest trolls, both carrying clubs, ran to flank him, either side, and whacked him hard, driving him to the ground. One flew away, though, a hand axe stuck deep into its forehead.

  Vaughna and Brother Jond came forward in a rush, protecting Bransen. Hardly slowing as she neared, Vaughna bent and scooped up his sword and waded into the trolls, axe and sword. She scored a kill, and wounded two others.

  “Net!” Brother Jond yelled, but before the word even truly registered to Vaughna she saw the trap, a huge net thrown by a trio of trolls. Instinctively she slashed at it. Bransen’s fine sword sliced through one of its thick strands. But more nets were already airborne. The trolls pressed in from in front and from behind.

  If it had been twenty, they might have won.

  If it had been thirty, they might have won.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Fed to the Fishes

  The arm crackled in protest as Cormack bent it over the torso of another dead troll. He tried to find some levity in this gruesome task. In truth, the monk couldn’t believe what he was doing here: tying together the bodies of several trolls he had slain into a makeshift raft. So he laughed because he wanted to scream, because the whole world had suddenly become surreal and ridiculous.

  “What have you reduced me to, Brother Giavno?” he asked aloud. He paused, surprised by the name he had put to his lament. Giavno hadn’t passed judgment upon him, after all. That had fallen to Father De Guilbe, so why had he just used Giavno’s name?

  Because Brother Giavno represented to him all the promise and all the failure of the Abellican Church. So much potential and such shortsightedness all wrapped into one complex package. Just thinking of the man made Cormack’s back ache, and yet, strangely, he found that
he bore the man no ill will. He couldn’t agree with the premise of his missionary brothers, and certainly not with their coercive and borderline evil methods, but he understood their perspective. He understood it all.

  So he would stand against it. Out here, on a barren lump of rock in the middle of a steamy lake, tying trolls together into a macabre raft. Cormack laughed for real this time. It was that or cry, and he preferred to laugh.

  Using strands of dead plants washed up against the rocks and contorting the stiffening troll bodies to complement each other, he soon enough had his bobbing craft constructed. He waded out with it to where the water was waist-deep, then pressed down on it to test its ballast. Dead trolls proved surprisingly buoyant—much more than a human, he thought, though of course he had no idea of how long his craft might last. Wouldn’t it be fitting for him to float out into the middle of Mithranidoon only to discover that troll buoyancy lasted only a short while? He chuckled again.

  To stay here was to die. That much he knew. Either trolls would come out of the water to attack him, or he’d waste away with little to nothing to eat, or he’d parch under the sun. Or a great storm would come up and wash him into the water—winter was closing in on Alpinador, after all, and even the warm waters of Mithranidoon were not immune to terrible storms.

  So he had his raft. He had no other chances to take. Cormack gathered up the plank of his destroyed boat to use as a paddle and pushed off, drifting into the mist on a squishy pillow of flesh. He had no true idea of where he was on the lake, no idea of which way lay Chapel Isle, or Yossunfier, so he played his hunch and paddled out generally in the direction he considered south.

  The plank wasn’t much of an oar. Mithranidoon’s strong crossing currents, brought on by the many hot springs that fed the lake and the constant battles between the colder surface water sinking into the heated depths, had Cormack swirling all over the place. The mist proved especially heavy this day, and the man couldn’t see more than a few feet in any direction. Eventually, he just surrendered to the whims of the lake and reclined on the troll raft.

  Sometime later, a slight twitch beneath him surprised him. He moved up to his elbows. The raft twitched again, then again more insistently. Cormack moved to the edge and peered into the dark waters, expecting to see a troll tugging at the raft. He fell back, swallowed hard, and knew he was horribly doomed, for a great fish had glided by just beneath him, a fish longer than he was tall.

  Breathing hard, the man knelt on the center of the macabre raft and took up his paddle. He had to get out of here, had to get anywhere that was not open water. The raft jerked one way then shuddered as something large bumped it from below. Suddenly it began moving sidelong against all of Cormack’s efforts, caught not by a current but by the gigantic fish!

  He scrambled to the edge; his face blanched as he saw the beast just below him, its large mouth clamped about a dangling troll leg. Cormack took up the plank in both hands and stabbed hard at the fish. The whole raft bobbed under the water suddenly then popped back up, its integrity beginning to fail. Cormack saw the fish swim off with the troll leg in its mouth.

  He rubbed his face. The raft continued to spasm as more and more of the huge fish nibbled, bit, and bumped it. He grabbed the plank and repeatedly smashed it down hard upon the water, trying to frighten the beasts away. For a few moments things did calm. Cormack held his breath, hoping he had escaped. But the raft was falling apart around him, and when he moved to hold it together he saw them, the great fish, circling and waiting.

  “Oh, Giavno, what have you reduced me to?” the distraught monk asked into the stifling Mithranidoon fog.

  Yach, pull “er left, ye fool!” Kriminig chastised the four dwarves rowing the boat. Cranky old Kriminig, all gray beard and wrinkled face, stood at the prow, clutching his bloodstained beret, which was the shiniest among the powries of Mithranidoon. For none had seen more battles and none had scored more kills than Kriminig.

  He closed his eyes as the boat began its turn and let his thoughts flow through his beret. All powrie caps shared the magic of bestowing toughness; wounds healed faster for the wearer, and the brighter a beret, the more cushion it would offer to its wearer. A few of those berets gained added benefits, as the layers of blood on the fabric and wisdom of experience for the wearer brought added insight.

  For dwarves like Kriminig, the berets could serve almost as beacons, though weak lights in a thick fog, where he could sense the magic of another powrie cap. An injured dwarf would spark the magic, and that magic resonated.

  Out on the lake fishing this day, Kriminig had felt such a pang, and though curious that it was coming from a direction opposite to their home island and far distant, and though he was confident that no dwarves other than the eight on his boat were off the island, he was certain of the feeling.

  “A powrie’s in trouble,” he declared, leaving no room for debate.

  “But our kin’re all back at the home,” another had argued.

  “Then more’ve come to the lake,” said a third, and so the debate went, round and round, and only one on the boat knew that he had an answer to the curious riddle.

  But Mcwigik, sitting in the back with the fishing net, thought it best to keep his suspicions to himself. A couple of the others, though, had heard rumors about Pragganag’s cap, and cast curious glances Mcwigik’s way.

  “Just ye keep rowing,” he said to them. “There might be something interesting to find.”

  “Too much left!” Kriminig grumbled. “Ease her back to starboard!”

  Mcwigik rubbed his ruddy face, wondering if they’d come upon a fight between the monks and the barbarians.

  He looked around frantically, lifting his head as much as possible, though he didn’t dare stand or even kneel on the rocking troll raft. Even if he spotted another island, Cormack knew that he was doomed: there was no way he could outswim these giant fish even if he managed to surprise them and get a good lead as he had done with the powries.

  One came up right before him and bit at a troll hand protruding in the air. Cormack saw those fish teeth all too clearly as they tore the fingers apart. If only he had an enchanted amber! He could use its magic and run across the water, barely disturbing the surface.

  If only …!

  This surely wasn’t how the young monk had pictured he would die. He had always recognized that he might not live to a ripe old age. When he had signed on to the mission in Alpinador, Cormack had known well that several other brothers had been killed by the barbarians. He wasn’t afraid to die, particularly if it happened in service to Blessed Abelle. Better to live life with a purpose, even with the risks, than to hide in a hole and hope for old age.

  But he didn’t want to die like this, anonymously, and for no better reason than to feed some fish.

  One came up and bit him on the side of his calf, tearing his skin. He swung about fast and slammed his fist into the side of the fish. While that action did send the thing back under the water, the movement also further diminished the integrity of the raft. Another troll body broke free, leaving Cormack on only three remaining ragged things.

  He felt his robes weighing him down as he often bobbed into the water, and he thought to take them off. To what point?

  All the fear and the anger went away then, suddenly. Resigned to his fate, Cormack stopped himself from removing the soaked and heavy robes. He would let them drag him down to the depths. Better to surrender to it and get it over with.

  He hoped he would lose consciousness quickly, that the pain wouldn’t be so intense.

  He took a deep breath, then blew it all out and set himself to plunge into the water, thinking he would just keep swimming down.

  Just as he was about to go, though, he heard a splash that he recognized as an oar dipping into the lake.

  “Here! Here!” he yelled, and he began smacking at the fish again with renewed urgency. “Here!”

  A fish as long as Cormack was tall leaped up before him, coming for his face, but the a
gile monk reacted with fury and speed, smashing it in the side of the head with a right cross that turned it aside. He hit it again several times as it thumped onto his raft and rolled into the water.

  But now he was in the water, the troll bodies all floating apart. His robes pulled him down as he worked his weary arms furiously to try to tread water. He tilted his head back as far as he could, gasping for breath. He got a mouthful of water instead and felt himself submerging.

  A strong hand grabbed his shoulder, though, and hauled him back up. A giant fish brushed against his leg, and he slammed his head as he went up over the side of a boat. Then he was lying on the wood, eyes closed, only semiconscious, and curled defensively. He coughed and felt water pouring from his mouth.

  “Well, what d’we got here?” he heard in that distinctive powrie dialect and the typical dwarf voice, which sounded somewhat like a receding wave rattling a beach of small stones.

  “Name’s Cormack,” said another, a voice the monk recognized. “Won the cap fair and square.”

  “So take the cap and throw the fool back to the Mith trout,” said the first, the last thing Cormack heard.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Captives

  Don’t let him fall,” Brother Jond implored Vaughna as she struggled to keep Bransen marching in the line of prisoners. They knew well what would happen if that occurred, for one of the other prisoners had tumbled from exhaustion and the cold and the thin air earlier that day up high on a mountain pass. The trolls had descended on that poor soul immediately, whipping and kicking, and when the woman hadn’t been able to get up (they prevented anyone from helping her), they had beaten her, laughing at and mocking her all the while, then left her for dead.

  “What is wrong with him?” Vaughna asked, for she had never seen anything like Bransen’s awkward, storklike gait.

  “He got hit too hard in the head,” Brother Jond replied. It was the eighth time he had answered that same question to Vaughna and to Olconna, whom he was now helping along the march. Olconna had taken a few fairly serious hits, and Jond initially feared that he would not survive. Most of those wounds had proven superficial, though, and Olconna’s growing reputation for toughness had proven well earned. Now, though in pain and needing support, he moved along without a whimper of complaint.