Talon stayed there for several minutes, feeling small and insignificant, before she forced her mind out of its stupor. She headed down the far side of the hill and focused on the army’s trail, grateful once she had entered the trees and the ocean faded from view. The trail continued east for a while and an odd frightening notion hit her mind. What if this army just kept going until they reached the ocean? What if they simply swam off, taking Matthew into the endless water?
What could she possibly do if that happened? She had swam across the frigid Wide River. Would she have the courage to enter this ceaseless expanse?
To her ultimate relief, her quarry never reached the beaches. They curved southward for a short distance. Then she realized that she was there. The demon army was camped in a large plain of thick green grasses. And they weren’t alone. Alongside the earthy mounds of the kobald camps and the spiky tents of the other mysterious demons was a vast field of domed leather structures, the strange tents of wild men.
Talon watched the movements of this army for most of the day, trying to puzzle out where they might be keeping her master. The only traces she had found of Matthew along her journey had been places where the demons had allowed him to stop and urinate. She had never seen his tracks, which told her that the army was somehow carrying him, perhaps on horseback. Since most of this army was infantry, she turned her focus on the command tents, getting as close as she dared without drawing attention.
The command tents were large canvas structures that were busy with the comings and goings of the various army leaders. Talon never saw Matthew himself, but as night came, she noticed an interesting gathering take place. Several tall and lanky gnomes exited the largest tent. They wore metal vests and carried weapons. Talon knew gnomes to be awkward and clumsy, but these moved with a fluid warrior bearing and walked in a protective formation. They were followed by two white-robed humans with red sashes across their chests and right behind them was another gnome unlike any Talon had seen.
This gnome moved as fluidly as the warriors had, but he carried himself with the regal bearing of one of those nobles that Ewwie had despised so much. He had a full head of hair and a shiny metal circlet sat on his brow, resting atop his floppy ears. He wore white robes and an empty sword sheath hung at his waist. Walking behind him was another strange person; a fat elf wearing silks.
This elite group moved to the edge of the camp, where the plains met a field of inland marshes. There they waited. What they waited for, Talon did not know, but she grew curious enough to come closer and check.
Sunlight faded from the sky and darkness, Talon’s old ally, approached. Ewwie had given her the sensitive eyes of a cat and she could see in the lowest levels of light. She drew near this strange commander’s party. The humans made a fire and a grand chair was brought down from the command tent for the gnome to sit in as he waited.
The gnome warriors spread out into the grasses and marshland, keeping a watchful eye for intruders, but this was only of minor concern for Talon. Hiding was one of her favorite pastimes and her black robes gave her added protection from the gnomes’ trained eyes.
An hour passed in which the gnome commander took tea and spoke to the red-sashed men. To Talon’s sensitive ears they might as well have been speaking directly to her. They spoke of troop movements and preparations for war. The commander replied asking for very specific details. It was all quite boring.
The old part of Talon’s mind considered how difficult it would be for her to rush in and kill this gnome. She could reach him before the humans had time to react. All she had to do was pierce him with her tail barb. The deathwhisper poison gland Ewwie had placed within her tail would do the rest. Of course, then she would have to deal with all those warrior gnomes. They seemed dangerous, but that would be fun.
Eventually Talon stopped those tantalizing thoughts. Killing this leader would be a pleasant way to get revenge on this army for taking her master, but it would not make it easier to secure him and escape. It would be best to rescue Matthew first and then see if he wished this gnome commander killed.
Just as she had decided that waiting in this place was a waste of her time, one of the gnome warriors rushed back from the marshes. It gave the commander a deep bow and said in an obsequious tone, “Warlord Aloysius, the lady Mellinda arrives.”
Talon’s blood froze. Surely she had heard incorrectly. Her old mistress was dead. Matthew had told her so. Were there other people named Mellinda?
Then she heard a group approaching from the marshes. Three individuals. Two large ones with heavy footsteps and one much lighter that walked with the familiar whisper of a woman wearing a dress.
Two hulking beasts stepped into the light first. They were nearly seven feet tall, as tall as the gnome warriors, but two or three times as thick, corded with muscles. Their light green skin glistened as with troll slime and they had a slightly trollish aroma, but their features were a mix of troll and man.
Walking between these two creatures was a human woman. Her hair was long and curled and black but for a single blond lock near her forehead. Her eyes were a striking green and her lips were full and luscious as was her figure. The way she stepped was odd and sinuous and it wasn’t until her scent hit Talon that the raptoid understood.
This woman reeked of Ewwie’s magic. On the backs of her fingers glittered Ewwie’s ten gemstones. Somehow she had taken Ewwie’s rings. Talon nearly darted forward to kill the woman right there. Then the woman spoke.
“Warlord Aloysius. So good to see you again,” the woman said with an alluring voice. A voice full of promise. The voice that fueled Talon’s nightmares.
Talon knew it right away. This was Mellinda. She looked nothing like the rotting creature that Talon had met in the dark forest, but somehow it was her. Mellinda had found a way to succeed. She had freed herself from her prison and escaped the wizards. Worst of all, she had stolen Ewwie’s powers.
Mellinda stepped forward and offered her hand. The gnome warlord stood and did not take her hand, but offered his own instead. Mellinda’s smile trembled, but she leaned forward and kissed his fingers, showing her fealty.
Talon did not know what to do. Her every instinct shouted that she should do something. Attack, flee for her life, or simply die of fear. But Talon did none of those things. She did not know why. Perhaps it was the calming influence of the robes she wore. She stayed still and she listened.
“Mellinda, you are late,” Aloysius admonished. “You were to be here at nightfall.”
Mellinda’s smile trembled again and anger flashed briefly behind her eyes, but she inclined her head. “I apologize, Warlord. The journey was long and the marshes harsh terrain. Please forgive my tardiness.”
The woman did not look like someone who had undergone a long journey through the swamps. Her dress was pristine and she smelled nothing like the troll slime and mud she should have been sloshing through.
The gnome glanced at the two beasts that accompanied the woman. “What are these beasts you have with you? Where is the troll army you promised?”
“These, Warlord, are trollkin, a mix of man and troll,” she explained. “You see, when I arrived in the swamps and travelled to the Troll Mother’s great wound, I found that the wound had closed. In its place she had created a womb.”
“A womb?” Aloysius said with an eyebrow raised in interest.
“Yes, Warlord,” she said, growing excited. “Somehow over the last thousand years, the Troll Mother changed. She has stopped making trolls and began giving birth to a new race. A race more intelligent and powerful and useful than trolls.”
“A fascinating development,” he said and approached the beasts. He walked around them, examining their physiques. The two trollkin glanced at each other in confusion but didn’t move. “These specimens are quite different from each other. This one has definite canine qualities, while this one has vestigial feathers running down its spine. Tell me, Mellinda. Are they not, in fact, creations of those rings you wear?”
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“They are not,” she said. “Look at them with spirit sight. Mage sight, if you have the ability. Do you see any trace of my magic on them?”
“Perhaps not,” he replied. “Though this really does not seem possible. How would a mindless, soulless creature like the Troll Mother create a race as diverse as this?”
“Blasphemy,” growled one of the trollkin.
“The Mother is not soulless or mindless!” barked the other.
“Quiet!” Mellinda hissed. Her fingers writhed bonelessly and the two trollkin froze in place. “I apologize, Warlord. They had been told not to speak.”
He smiled in response and Talon realized that he had chosen his words carefully. He had intended to see if he would get this response from the beasts and had learned that their loyalty was not to Mellinda alone. “It seems they worship this mother of theirs.”
“Yes. Each one of them is born with a belief that the Troll Mother is their god and in a way she is. However, their goddess is loyal to me and will do my bidding,” Mellinda said.
Talon did not quite believe this statement and the gnome seemed just as dubious. “You never answered my earlier question. How can an unthinking soulless beast feel loyalty, much less produce offspring with souls?”
Mellinda curtseyed, an action that looked disingenuous on the woman, and said, “Once again, you impress me with your knowledge, Warlord. Yes, trolls are so devolved that they have become soulless. However, the Troll Mother is one of the originals, the first thulls that I modified. Her mutation was caused, I believe, by the constant tearing of her soul as I used her to make trolls.
“Somehow the scrap of soul that she had left after being transformed into the Troll Mother has grown and adapted over these long years. Her intelligence is not one that you or I would readily understand, after all she is a creature the size of the swamps. But she has learned how to create her children in a way that makes each one so unique.”
The gnome warlord pressed his palms together and touched his fingertips to his lips. “My interest has been piqued. Continue.”
Mellinda licked her lips and as she spoke, it was as if she was discovering this theory while she said it. “The Troll Mother swallows whole various beasts that she can capture, including many men and people of the other intelligent races that come close enough. She then takes the basic material of these people and combines it with her own to create something new.
“Somehow, in a way that quite honestly I have not yet discovered, she then binds the souls of these people to their new bodies. As a result of this process, they have no memory of the events of their previous lives, yet they retain vital information allowing them to be born as fully formed, thinking adult creatures. When I came across them, they had already formed a society deep within the Troll Swamps and were living in KhanzaRoo.”
Talon was completely lost at this point of the conversation, but Aloysius seemed to take it all in stride.
“An interesting development,” he said with as much emotion as a man that had just been told that he would get two rolls with his dinner instead of one. “Now tell me, how many of these trollkin are there?”
“At the moment, their numbers are not great, Warlord,” Mellinda admitted. “They number in just over a thousand.”
A laugh escaped the gnome’s lips at the same time that a flash of anger entered his eyes. “You promised me an army far greater than I could raise on my own. No doubt these trollkin are formidable foes even if, as I suspect, you brought these two because they were your two finest specimens. However, they could be twice as large and twice as strong and those numbers would still pale beside the tens of thousands I must face to take Malaroo as my own.”
Mellinda took this berating meekly as if expecting that it would come. “This is true, Warlord. Which is why I have come to make you an offer that will improve both our situations.”
He waved a bored hand. “Continue.”
She gave him a sultry smile. “I have it on good authority that your current allies, this Mer-Dan collective, has a surplus of prisoners and malcontents that have become a drain on your resources. After all, you must feed them and guard them.”
He smiled back in return. “So that is the true reason for your tardiness. You questioned some poor unfortunate individual along the way. I wonder if they still live.” He shrugged. “No matter. It is possible that your information is correct. I take it you are offering a way that we might rid ourselves of them? By feeding them to your Troll Mother, perhaps?”
Her smile became a chuckle. “It would benefit us both. Do you not agree? You send your problem children to the Mother and receive a loyal army in return.”
His smile faded. “You are unaware of my timeline, Troll Queen. In just two weeks I will be meeting with the Protector of the Grove to negotiate his surrender. As much as I would love for him to join my empire willingly, I am most certain that he will choose to fight. That, Mellinda, is the crucial moment I need your army for.
“It would take several days to deliver these problem children to the Troll Mother’s waiting mouth. Just how quickly can she process these souls?”
Mellinda’s smile did not leave her face, but her arms began to sway in a snakelike fashion. This was something that Talon’s time with Ewwie had taught her meant that the bearer of the rings had come under a great deal of stress. The woman was close to losing control. Talon’s skin itched and that muted primal part of her pleaded that she leave.
When the woman was unable to respond right away, the gnome warlord stroked his chin thoughtfully. “But perhaps your thought isn’t so far off, Mellinda. I propose an alternate plan . . .”
Chapter Nineteen
Aloysius and Mellinda were still negotiating the details of the Warlord’s plan when Talon decided to sneak away. She had realized that there was little more for her to learn from the discussion and she had no time to digest what she had seen. Matthew was still captured.
Her first intention had been to free her master later in the night while more of the army slept, but after what she had just seen, it now seemed best to attempt a rescue while the army’s commander was distracted. She had just watched him undermine and dismantle Mellinda with nothing but precisely chosen words and was now almost as wary of him as she was of her former mistress.
She slid from her protected position in the tall grass and stole away between two watchful gnome warriors. Once Talon was sure that she was a safe distance away, she climbed a nearby tree and observed the army, looking for the best route to the command tents. They had been placed in the center of the army and though there was a nice gap between their tents and the camps of the regular soldiers, she would have to pass through one of the camps to get there.
One factor in her favor was that this was not an army under high alert. The guards were lax, most of them talking with the other soldiers at their various campfires. Talon could see which groups of soldiers had decided to retire early and which had decided to stay up and converse and play games with each other.
The shortest route was through the strange spiky tents. In her short time listening to conversations between the guards earlier in the day, she had learned that the white skinned creatures with red claws that inhabited these tents were called imps. They wore strange bladed armor and she had seen them use both air and fire magic. They also seemed more alert and watchful than the other camps, so she decided against that route.
The wild human camp was a dangerous choice because they were all too awake and aware. Most of them were dancing and chanting and their fires burned so brightly that she could not find a route immersed in shadow.
Ultimately, the route she found was a circuitous one, but Talon decided that sneaking through the kobald troops was the better choice. Her time spent watching Ewwie torture some of them had taught her much about kobalds’ sensitivity to earth magic. She knew that they would hear the vibration of her feet as she crept by, but with an army this large, it would be impossible for them to distinguish between the vibrati
ons of friend or foe. She would simply have to take care and travel between the dirt mounds that had closed their openings for the night.
She waited for a guard to pass, then released her pheromones as she made her way past the tent mounds of the kobalds. The way was easier than expected. There was one tense moment when she crept by the mound of two kobald lovers that were trying to be discreet, and were very aware of her vibrations as she passed by. But thankfully they did not seem worried that her footsteps weren’t as heavy as a kobald and she slid by unchallenged.
Now that she was past the common soldiers, there was a nice grassy gap between her and the command tents. The guards in this area were more alert and kept to a strict pattern that took her a few minutes to memorize. She made her way to the largest of the tents and crept up close, sniffing at the tiny gap in the bottom.
The Troll King (The Bowl of Souls Book 9) Page 33