Messenger of the Dark Prophet (The Bowl of Souls: Book Two) (36 page)

To her surprise, the trolls did not move. They stayed in their tight circle while it approached. What could be holding them back? Trolls were savage beasts that attacked on sight.

The steer stopped a few yards before the trolls and stood silently. Then as if by signal, the trolls erupted into action. All fifteen of them leapt at the animal, knocking it to the ground. They ripped and bit and clawed. The animal was torn to pieces in less than a minute. Jhonate shivered. This was the behavior she expected from a pack of trolls.

As they gorged themselves, Jhonate decided that it was not a good idea to stay in her position. Despite Faldon’s instructions, she needed to fall back. As she began to lower herself back behind the tree, she caught a glimpse of the thing the trolls had been standing around.

It was a creature she was unfamiliar with. About the size of a large dog, it had the head and body of a rat. An extra set of arms were set upon its back and there looked to be a hand on the end of its tail. Most strange of all were its enormous round eyes. They were
pupilless
and seemed to let off a glow that she could see even in the daylight.

It didn’t seem to like being in the sun though. As she watched, it retreated into the shade of a large rock. Then it let out a sound, a sort of
chittering
moan. The sound made Jhonate grip her staff tightly. It was a sound out of nightmares.

The moment the sound stopped, one of the trolls left the carcass and approached the creature carrying a chunk of meat. It tossed the meat to the creature before returning to the kill.

Jhonate wondered if she could somehow be dreaming.
A troll sharing its meal?
The idea was ridiculous, yet she had seen it with her own eyes.

She ducked back behind the tree and nearly jumped when she saw that a man was crouched down beside her. She had been so intent on the spectacle before her that she hadn’t heard him approach.

Jobar
da
Org nodded at her with a sly grin and gestured to show that they had the clearing surrounded. The man was short, but powerfully built. Though it was a chill fall day, he wore a sleeveless vest that showed off muscled arms covered in intricate tattoos.

As he peeked up over the tree, Jhonate berated herself for getting caught unawares. Jobar wasn’t even one of the quiet ones. The moment she got back to the academy, she would increase her training regimen. A woman in her position could not afford to let her guard down.

She looked to her right and saw Faldon and two Dremaldrian soldiers creeping through the
treeline
. They crouched behind some cover and drew their bows. Faldon signaled to her.

Jhonate pulled the pole sling from a leather pouch at her waist. It was specially designed to work with her Jharro wood staff. On one end of the sling was a loop that she slid over the tip of the staff. She sent a mental command and the wood swelled around the loop, holding it in place.

She took an iron ball out of her pouch and licked it before dipping it in pepper. She then put the ball in the pocket of the sling and connected the other end of the sling to her staff, which swelled again in order to grasp it. She was so practiced that the process took but a second.

Jhonate’s staff was made from the Jharro trees of the elven forest. With a thought, she could cause wood of the staff to change its form, from creating a razor sharp edge, to making it soft for sparring. The magic of the staff was keyed only to her. To anyone else, it was just a piece of wood.

She drew the staff back and started the sling spinning. It picked up speed and she looked back to Faldon. The rest of the strike force readied their weapons and Faldon nodded. She whipped the staff forward, causing it to release the shot at just the right moment.

The momentum of the staff hurled the iron ball forward with such force that it caved in the side of the first troll’s head with a shower of slime. It fell to the ground, convulsing. This was the signal to strike and everyone else released their shots.

Arrows and daggers filled the air. The shots were aimed at their heads and knees. There was no such thing as a killing blow to a troll, but a strike to the head could take it out of the fight for a while, while a strike to the knees could keep it from running at you.

Everyone leapt from their concealment with melee weapons ready. When it came to trolls, there would not be time for a second shot. Their instincts were too finely tuned and they feared nothing.

Sure enough, as soon as the shots hit their targets, the trolls that could move dropped their meals and hurtled towards the attackers regardless of their wounds. The volley had only been successful in taking five of the creatures down.

While the rest of the strike force charged, Jhonate ignored the danger and attempted one more shot. She didn’t bother with the pepper this time. She had another target in mind. She let loose and the shot struck the shadows on the far side of the clearing. She was sure she had hit the strange creature. Its glowing eyes made for an easy target.

She got the shot off just as a troll leapt over the downed tree towards her. She rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding the beast’s claws, and whipped the far end of her staff around, changing the shape of the staff to a razor edge. The staff caught the troll in the back of the neck, severing the cervical spine and nearly beheading it.

She took a quick moment to douse the wound with pepper to keep the troll from being able to join back into the fight. She then leapt over the downed tree to help the rest of the soldiers.

The academy force was doing well considering what they were up against. The students had each taken down a troll and as she watched, Faldon the Fierce cleaved one in two from shoulder to hip with his mighty sword, the Monarch. Trolls were such fierce opponents though that not all of the students had the time to pepper the beasts before having to fight another one. Some of the trolls were starting to get back up.

Jhonate also noted with sorrow that three of the Dremaldrian soldiers had been killed. Trolls were feasting on their bodies. She changed the staff back to normal, letting the sling slip off the end. There was no time to put it away. She would come back for it later.

She joined the fray, her body moving fluidly from attack to attack. She was so at one with the staff that she didn’t have to think about transforming it. It simply flowed with her, changing form as needed.

She took on two trolls at once, thick blows of the staff knocking them back to keep them from leaping on her and bearing her down with their weight.  When they were on their heels, both ends of the staff became blades and she struck back and forth, carving out large chunks of their flesh, wearing them down until she could strike blows that would end the fight.

Qenzic, son of Sabre Vlad came to her aid, approaching from behind the beasts and cutting their hamstrings with quick slices of his sword before moving on to help someone else. The trolls
collapsed,
their legs unable to
support
their weight and Jhonate forced the tips of the staff into points before piercing their skulls, rendering them useless. She scattered pepper on the beasts and moved on.

The fight was winding down. She saw Jobar, who was grappling with one troll snap its neck with one twist of his bulging forearms. Another student named
Poz,
son of Weld was walking around each troll body and lopping their heads off with his sword before sprinkling pepper into the wounds.

All four academy students and Faldon had survived the battle without any major wounds, but four of the Dremald soldiers had died.

The survivors went about the grim work of piling together the bodies of the trolls. They were careful not to leave a single piece behind. Faldon ordered the whole pile to be peppered again just to be sure and ordered a hole dug, so that the creatures could be buried.

“What a day, eh, Daughter of Xedrion,” Jobar
da
Org said in his odd southern dialect. The students all knew not to call her by her first name. In her culture that was forbidden until she had given them permission. She was known to enforce this tradition with physical force. “Too bad we can’t just burn the beasts without sending up smoke signals to all the goblinoids in the hills.”

“It is a sad day, Jobar. We lost good men,” she said and tossed a bottle of salve to him. “Cover those wounds.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said with sarcasm as he caught the bottle. But he opened the bottle anyway and slathered salve over the multiple cuts on his arms. This needed to be done immediately. Trolls were filthy creatures and their attacks often led to serious infections. He winked.
“Didn’t know you cared about me so much.”

“The battle was bad enough. We do not need to lose another warrior to simple stupidity.” Jhonate was aware that Jobar had taken a liking to her, but the feeling was not mutual. The man was good in a fight but also uncouth and slovenly. She caught the bottle as he tossed it back to her. “Now go help dig.”

Jobar rolled his eyes, but headed to the place where the students and soldiers had started the hole. Jhonate walked over to the commander.

Faldon the Fierce stood over the bodies of the dead soldiers with arms
folded,
a grim look on his face. He was an imposing figure, tall and as heavily muscled as Jobar. His body was scarred and his faced lined with experience. This was a man who had seen countless battles. The fact that he seemed to care about four men he had hardly known after all he had been through was in keeping with everything Jhonate knew about his character. He was a good man.

“What is the plan now, sir?” She decided that now was not a good time to bring up his bad handwriting.

“We clean up here,
then
head back to camp. I will need to send word back to the border patrols that we need a few more men. I also need to inform them of our losses.” He turned and gestured at the pile of troll bodies. “What I don’t understand is what fifteen of those bastards were doing together in one spot. There is too much about the activity in these mountains that does not make sense.”

“There is more, sir.” She told Faldon everything that she had seen before his arrival. He shook his head in amazement and she added, “I believe that I killed the beast that seemed to be controlling them.”

“Show me.”

She led him across the clearing to the shadows where the creature had been hiding. Her shot had struck true. The iron ball had buried itself between the beast’s luminous orbs. Faldon crouched down.

“What in the names of the gods is this doing so far out here?” he asked.

“What is it, sir?”

“This, Jhonate, is a moonrat. They live in the forest between the academy and the
Mage
School
. They are nasty creatures.”

“How do you think it was controlling them?”

“It couldn’t have. Moonrats don’t control anything. They can’t control themselves. They are almost as bad as trolls with the way they attack anything that moves.” He sighed and scratched his head. “This is yet another in the string of mysteries we have uncovered out here. We’ll need to bring it back to the camp with us. Perhaps some wizard has tampered with it.”

“Sir . . . there is one more thing . . .”

He looked down at her hands and smiled at her. “Are you about to ask me about Justan?”

“I am sorry, sir?” she asked in bewilderment.

“Whenever you are about to ask me about Justan, you fiddle with that ring on your forefinger.”

Jhonate looked down and saw that he was indeed right. Ever since Justan had left for the
Mage
School
, she thought about him constantly. She told herself that it was just concern for her past pupil and friend. She had trained him for an entire year after all. But why then did his face interrupt her studies? Why did his infuriating way of joking around come up in her dreams? She dropped her hands to her side in embarrassment.

“I am just concerned for his well being, sir.”

“Of course you are,” he
said,
the smile still on his face. He patted her shoulder. “The last I heard from him, he was studying hard, but still determined to get out of there as soon as he could so that he could start at the academy. That was several weeks ago. I did
however,
receive a message just before we left from Ambassador Valtrek saying that the High Council was considering raising him to the rank of Apprentice. That is astounding for a student in their first year.”

Jhonate was pleased. “You should be proud of your son, Faldon the Fierce. He pushes himself even though he is there against his wishes.”