Changeling Illusion (Thirteen Realms Book 3)

by Marina Finlayson

  They were too big for me, but he tightened the straps firmly around my wrists so that they stayed on, and it felt like sinking my hands into a warm bath.

  I closed my eyes for a moment and savoured the blissful sensation. “Thank you, Sir Knight.”

  “Call me Ebos,” he said, smiling. “See that peak over there with the smoke rising from it?”

  I nodded. “That’s where we’re going?”

  His eyes gleamed. “Yes. That’s my home, the Realm of Fire.”

  My heart sank as I eyed the distance between us and the smoking peak. “It still looks a long way away.”

  “Don’t worry, we don’t have to walk all the way. Only to the border.”

  I glanced sideways at him. His cheeks above the scarf were pink, his eyes sparkling. Was that excitement at seeing his home again after so long? I hoped his brother wouldn’t spoil this homecoming. “And where is the border?”

  “At the bottom of the pass. We’re more than halfway there.”

  Well, that was encouraging, though my shoulders were aching from the unaccustomed weight of the pack and my feet were still numb. “Great, let’s eat something to celebrate. My stomach is starting to feel like my throat’s been cut.”

  He snorted, but swung off his pack. I did the same, and we ate a hasty meal of cheese and fruit and little sweet cakes that the castle kitchen had provided.

  The snow began to fall more heavily as we set off again. Several times I caught Ebos eyeing the sky with concern, and sniffing the breeze as if that would give him some kind of accurate weather forecast. The third time he did it I couldn’t hold in my curiosity any longer.

  “What do you smell?” My fae senses were good, but I couldn’t smell anything except pine and the constant wetness of the air and the damp wool and fur around my head.

  He considered me, as if weighing up whether to answer. “Cave trolls,” he said finally.

  I glanced around, but the snow was falling faster now, the flakes big and fat, and the day was rapidly disappearing into a featureless white mass. “Cave trolls? Where?”

  He kept up a steady pace, striding through the snow as if he were on a well-worn path through the palace grounds. “Behind us a little ways. I first picked up the scent where we saw the fox hole.”

  “And you didn’t say anything? How many trolls are we talking?”

  “Probably just a small family pack.”

  He said that like it was a good thing. “Oh, awesome. What do we do?”

  “We keep walking and hope that the weather worsens and throws them off our scent.”

  Seriously? Now we were hoping to be caught in a blizzard? This day was rapidly going from bad to worse. “And how likely is that to happen?”

  “Not very. They are remarkably good trackers. But there are some caves further down where we can make a stand.”

  We walked a little further in uneasy silence. At least, it was uneasy on my side. That sense of being watched that I always had in the Wilds was back in full force, only this time there was a reason. An enormous, violent reason. Probably a hungry one, too. Ebos seemed remarkably calm about the whole thing.

  “Do you often run into cave trolls in these mountains?”

  “All the time. The place is littered with them.” He sounded almost cheerful. Strange man. He smiled at me, his eyes crinkling again above his scarf. “Don’t worry. I can handle a single pack of trolls, no problem.”

  Great. As long as there was a single pack, and not a whole tribe of the bastards on our tail. Still, there was no sense stressing about it until I saw what we were up against. I resisted the urge to sprint down the mountainside in search of the caves, forcing myself to mimic his steady, ground-eating stride.

  “Storm coming,” my companion said after an endless, anxious time. My shoulders were up around my ears, hunched against an impending attack. “Fortunately, we’re almost at the caves.”

  It was much darker now, more grey than white. I’d lost all sense of time, so I had no idea if that was because of the storm or if it was nearly nightfall again. Either way, a cave seemed like a pretty good idea. I had the sneaking suspicion that the trolls were waiting for the darkness before they closed in, and I wanted to be out of the open before that happened.

  I was stumbling on unseen rocks, the darkness almost complete, when Ebos stopped. With a note of satisfaction in his voice, he said, “Here we are.”

  The cave was almost as hard to spot as the fox hole had been. Hidden behind a stand of scrubby pines, you would have had to have known it was there to have any chance of finding it. Obviously, the Dragon knew these mountains well.

  He went first, summoning a ball of faelight, and inspected the cave. I shouldered in behind him, unwilling to be left alone outside. There was a neat pile of bones in one corner and a strong stench of some kind of animal, but it was clearly empty. It wasn’t big enough for anything to hide from us. Somewhat relieved, I eased off my pack with a groan.

  “Stay here,” the Dragon said, dropping his own pack and drawing his sword instead.

  16

  For a moment, I considered doing as he said. My numb, exhausted feet wanted nothing more than to take the load off, and my back was aching from toting the pack halfway up the mountain and down again. But I could hardly let him go out to face a pack of trolls on his own, dragon or no dragon. So after a moment, I dug through my pack for my knives and moved to the cave entrance.

  The blades were so cold I could feel them through the thick gloves I was wearing. They would probably fuse to my skin if I handled them with my bare flesh. Fortunately, I could be just as deadly with gloves on, even gloves that didn’t fit properly.

  I hefted the first knife in my hand, testing its weight and feel against the glove. It was hard to see anything outside. Beyond the scrubby pines that sheltered the cave loomed a wall of grey. Grey night, grey snow. I couldn’t see the Dragon at all until he moved slightly. He was standing on the other side of the pines, half hidden among their drooping, snow-laden branches. And he was watching the way up the mountain with the fierce intensity of a predator.

  We waited while the wind whistled past and whipped the snowflakes into a blinding world. It was fully dark now, and I kept blinking, hoping to clear the snow and grit from my eyes. It didn’t make any difference—visibility was still poor. It was becoming harder to see the Dragon, still as a statue beneath his pine.

  I blinked again and a piece of the mountain moved.

  Holy shit. It was massive. This was a cave troll? I’d heard they were bigger than the regular river trolls I was used to, but this was something else.

  The creature was twice the Dragon’s height and maybe ten times heavier. It moved with a slow, lumbering gait, but the size of its legs meant it could still move quickly. It trailed a club behind it in the snow, gouging a deep furrow in the earth. The club was so crudely crafted, it was barely more than an uprooted tree with the branches stripped off.

  I held my breath, watching the creature’s slow approach. Was there only one? Even one troll this size would be a Herculean task to bring down. My little knives would barely be more than the annoying buzz of a fly to it. I glanced again at Ebos, wondering if he was as scared as I was, but he still hadn’t moved, content to let the monster come to him.

  Another troll emerged from the snow-tossed gloom. This one was significantly shorter and obviously female, though she was still massive, rising head and shoulders above the Dragon. And she also carried a club.

  I strained my eyes against the swirling snow, trying to pierce the gloom. Another shape appeared, and then another, both troll children or perhaps adolescents, judging by their relative size. These were only the height of the Dragon himself, but both carried clubs. Looked like clubbing was a family pastime.

  Papa Troll sniffed the air. He had a wide, flat nose that looked like it had been broken and spread across his face several times already. His craggy brows sheltered granite-cold eyes that surveyed the scene cautiously. His whole body was grey,
and the dirty furs he wore blended right in with his stony skin. In the dark and the snow, he was almost invisible, despite his height.

  I glanced back over my shoulder into the cave. I’d noticed a long, straight bone, probably a femur, in the pile of bones in the corner. Would that be a more useful weapon than my knife? Maybe a rock? Unless I could land a blade directly in his eye, I didn’t see what use my knives would be in this fight. It looked like it was all on the Dragon, and that would be a very uneven contest indeed.

  I drew back into the shadows of the cave as Papa Troll’s gaze turned my way. Did the trolls know the cave was here? I had to assume they did. Maybe they’d been the ones who’d assembled the pile of bones. Suddenly, the cave no longer felt like such a sanctuary, but more of a trap.

  I dug under my furs and withdrew the cloak of shadows from my back pocket. This seemed like an excellent time to be invisible. Quickly, I settled the cloak around my shoulders. It clung to me, clasping itself at my neck, and I winked out of existence. Well, not precisely. I could still feel the biting cold, sadly. But I couldn’t be seen. I tucked the knife away and picked up the jagged leg bone, then stepped out into the whirling snow.

  Papa Troll lifted his head to scent the air again. The wind had picked up, and was driving the snow almost horizontally. It brought me his rank troll stench, and I recognised it as the animal scent from inside the cave. So the trolls did know of its existence. Better to be out here in the clean air, then, with room to manoeuvre.

  I circled around, putting the stand of pines where the Dragon waited between me and the group of trolls, moving very slowly. Of course I left footprints in the snow, but it took only moments for the wind to erase them after I had moved.

  I hadn’t realised how much warmth the dank cave had actually been providing until I stepped out into the weather again. Higher up, the wind was shrieking around the peaks, though their tops were invisible through the driving snow. The trolls didn’t seem bothered by the weather. I watched uneasily as they spread out across the width of the pass and began to move forward as a group. It was as if they knew there was something ahead they couldn’t yet see and they were determined to herd it before them.

  One of the smaller trolls was closest to the stand of scrubby pines. The Dragon waited until the troll had almost drawn level with him before leaping out from his place of concealment. The bright blade of his sword sang through the air and a troll head went tumbling free.

  It took a moment for the other trolls to realise what had happened. The headless body flopped to the ground, spewing blood, which lay obscenely bright against the pale snow. The female troll howled and sprang with surprising agility at the Dragon, her club raised for a smashing blow.

  Ebos sidestepped the downward arc of her club and brought his sword around, biting into the troll’s side. She roared in pain, but it barely slowed her down, and then her massive mate joined the fight.

  The Dragon was in serious trouble. The giant troll’s tree trunk of a club smashed down, missing Ebos by inches. He danced back, his sword flashing, but he couldn’t get close enough to land a blow with those two mighty clubs clearing an arc around the trolls. The third troll began to circle around, trying to get behind the knight.

  That was my cue. Moving soundlessly, I got as close as I could to the third troll. All his attention was on the fight between the knight and his parents, and he had no idea I was even there. I was so close I could smell the rank stench of his wet furs and his own horrendous body odour.

  When I was close enough that I had to hold my breath against the foul stench of the troll teen, I hauled back and slammed my improvised bone bat into the back of his knees as if they were a baseball and I was swinging for the fences. He sprawled face first in the snow, and I cast aside the bone and drew my first knife.

  I leapt onto the downed troll’s back, knife ready; with my free hand, I reached for the greasy nest of matted hair on his head. I jerked his head back hard and leaned forward to slash his throat.

  The troll teen had amazingly fast reflexes, considering his size. He couldn’t see me. All he knew was that he was down with a weight on his back, and he did the first thing that popped into his rock-like skull. Unfortunately for me, it proved all too effective.

  He hurled himself into a roll to one side, and I ended up on my back in the snow with a large and angry troll on top of me. The only thing I had going for me at this point was that I was still invisible. Thankfully, he scrambled back to his feet before I died of asphyxiation by troll, but it took me longer than I would have liked before I could move again. I was completely winded.

  Luckily for me, he was none too bright. Seeing nothing on the ground, he began casting around, trying to find his invisible assailant. I got to my feet, wincing. Breathing was difficult, and I really hoped I hadn’t cracked a rib, but I did my best to keep my breathing as quiet as possible. Admittedly, the howling of the wind was pretty good cover for any noises that I was making.

  My blade had scratched the troll teen’s neck and a line of bright blood was visible above his ragged furs. That was a start, but it wasn’t going to be much use to the Dragon. I risked a look over my shoulder and saw he was still holding his own against the two larger trolls. But for how much longer? Papa Troll, in particular, had him dancing backwards and forwards across the snowy ground in a desperate effort to avoid the mighty sweeps of the giant club.

  Teen Troll decided that if it was working for dad, it would work for him, too, even if he couldn’t see his enemy. He began laying about him with his club, making wild swings in every direction. I had to drop back to the snow as one massive swing sailed over my head, narrowly missing me. The snow around me puffed into the air as I hit the deck and Teen Troll paused, his club upraised. I could almost hear the gears grinding in his head as he came to the conclusion that his invisible enemy must have caused that disturbance in the snow, and he brought the club whistling down.

  Desperately, I rolled to the side, just managing to avoid becoming a snow slushy. But he was on to me now, watching for evidence of my movements in the snow. He pounced again so soon that he nearly took my head off.

  Scrambling to my feet, I dived for the shelter of the trees. My nimbleness was an advantage in among the tree trunks, and he wasn’t as free to swing that vicious club there. I ducked under the snow-laden boughs of the nearest pine and began to climb, hugging the trunk so as to disturb the least amount of snow.

  Clearly, it hadn’t occurred to him that his prey might take to the trees, for he continued to rampage around the bases of them, lashing out as best he could with his club, slamming it into the snow between the tree trunks. Great clouds of snow fountained into the air with every blow. Well, at least I had drawn him away from the Dragon.

  But perhaps I could still do more. Once I had attained a height beyond the reach of his club, I settled myself securely in a fork of the tree and balanced my knife between my gloved fingertips. It would be a difficult shot, considering all the branches and pine needles between us. I bided my time, waiting for the right opportunity. I only had two knives, and I couldn’t afford to waste a shot.

  Finally, Teen Troll moved into the perfect position. I had a clear shot at his head. I lined up on my target and let the knife fly.

  The blade buried itself into his left eye, and the troll’s screech echoed around the pass, reverberating off the rocky walls.

  That was enough to completely distract his mother from her battle with the knight. She loped toward him at once, holding her own injured side. The Dragon slashed at the back of her leg as she passed, no doubt hoping to hamstring her. But she flicked her club almost contemptuously and, by a lucky chance, managed to catch the tip of his sword.

  In horror, I watched his sparkling sword go cartwheeling through the air. Now he was defenceless. Although the mother troll’s attention was fully on her injured son, Papa Troll was business as usual. He brought his club whistling down, forcing the Dragon to dance out of reach, further away from his sword.
/>
  Papa Troll grinned, showing a mouthful of pointed yellow teeth, and stepped closer to the sword, practically on top of it. Come and get it if you dare, his body language said.

  The Dragon was in a pickle. Any moment now, two angry, pain-maddened trolls could turn on him, and in the meantime the biggest one of all was still fighting fit, and him with no weapon at all. I drew my other knife and lined up a desperate shot, hoping to add Papa Troll to the list of the injured, but he moved just as I released the knife and it sailed harmlessly past his head.

  The Dragon had evidently come to the same conclusion, as he darted forward, throwing himself onto his belly, reaching for the lost sword. The gigantic club slammed into the snow, but he rolled out of harm’s way. Once, twice, the Dragon evaded the smashing blows. He had me believing he could do it. But the next blow connected.

  I clapped my hands over my mouth to hold in the shout of horror as the massive club slammed into the back of the Dragon’s head.

  His arm was still outstretched, fingers grasping at the hilt, almost in reach. But now forever beyond him. There was no way any man could survive a blow to the head like that, fae or not.

  Tears sprang to my eyes as I stared down at the unmoving body of the knight spreadeagled in the snow. Papa Troll shook his head at the sky and yelled something that must have been a cry of triumph. His mate and their child staggered back to his side, and all three of them stared down at the Dragon’s body for a moment. Then, just in case there was any hope left in my heart at all, the troll picked up the knight’s own sword and solemnly skewered him on it.

  17

  I perched in the tree, numb, while below me the two biggest trolls conversed in voices that sounded like rocks scraping together. After a time, they seemed to come to a decision, and Papa Troll picked up the body of his fallen child, then grabbed one of the Dragon’s feet and set off down the path, dragging the dead knight behind him. The knight’s limp body left a trail of pink, churned-up snow in its wake as his blood mixed with the white powder, the sword still standing up from his back like a flagpole. The injured teen troll shuffled after his father, one hand cradling his bloody eye, leaving Mama Troll behind.