The Troll King (The Bowl of Souls Book 9) (8 page)

Cletus chose that moment to appear. His arms were full of Tarah’s clothes and armor. “Here’s your stuff, pretty Tarah,” said the gnome. “Put it on so you won’t be blurry anymore, okay?”

Tarah let out a sigh of relief and took the clothes from him. “Thanks, Cletus.”

She glanced over at their Roo-Tan babysitters to see if they were watching, knowing it would confuse them to see her putting clothes on over her other clothes. The two men were busily burying the fire, but were keeping an eye on what she and Djeri were doing, so she ducked behind Neddy to dress.

The dwarf followed her, finally getting his jaw under control. “Just what the hell was that all about? Turds, woman! Willum and I come bringing in new possible allies to fight against the gnome and you step out naked as a plucked hen!”

“Oh, is that how my body looked?” she said, pulling her linen undershirt over her head. “Well you’ll be lucky if I ever let you ever see it again.”

Cletus groaned and put his hands over his ears. “No arguing!”

“Don’t you try to turn this on me, Tarah,” Djeri said, ignoring the gnome. “You know I like how you look. It’s been distracting me this whole time. What I don’t like is this crazy behavior! What if even one of them was able to see through the illusion? How much credibility are you going to have if word gets out Tarah Woodblade likes to walk around greeting people cheeks to the wind?”

Tarah scowled at him. She was well aware of the situation she had been in. “I didn’t do it as a stunt, ya frog brain! I was coming back from the river when you all showed up. I had no way to get to my clothes without brushing by someone. What was I supposed to do, hide behind a tree and call out for someone to bring my stuff? Would that have been a great first impression?”

The dwarf placed a weary hand on his forehead and said calmly, “Then you should have told Esmine to create a distraction and turn you invisible so that you could sneak in and grab your armor.”

Tarah’s scowl deepened as she pulled up her pants. Oh how she wanted to come up with a good reason to throw that suggestion back in his face. Instead, she found herself saying, “I thought about just that thing, but Esmine suggested the alternate plan and I . . . went with her suggestion. Don’t look at me like that! It was a split-second decision.”

“Stop listening to her so much!” Djeri snapped. “She’s an animal, for turd’s sake. The only reason she can speak to you is because she learned how by rooting around in your brain. Her decision making is like that of a . . . ten-year-old.”

“
Ten year old! I’m 850 years older than he is!”
Rolf said, his jaw screwed up in anger as he stalked over to the dwarf. He lifted his completed wood carving, a depiction of Djeri, and snapped it in two. “
Tarah, hit him with your staff for me
.”

Stop it, Esmine
. “She survived for over a thousand years on her own,” Tarah said to the dwarf. “Her instincts are good.”

“Are they now?” Djeri scoffed. “Then tell me something. What kind of coon hunt did she just send Sir Edge on?”

“
I had nothing to do with that
,” said Grampa Rolf, folding his arms. “
That dragon creature is just out of my range
.”

“Huh.” A few miles away was ‘just out of her range’? That was new information. It was kind of frightening, even. The rogue horse was still learning the full depth of her power. Tarah shook her head. “It wasn’t Esmine. There must really be trolls over there.”

“Illusions!” Deathclaw seethed as he clung to the trunk of a magnolia tree, high above the troll horde below. Twenty three of the creatures were standing around the base of the tree, soundlessly reaching towards him, their toothy maws agape. The palm of his hand itched from the scar left by the pommel of his sword. Star had awakened and was eager to kill. Yet the trolls weren’t his biggest concern.

“Illusions!” he hissed again.

Deathclaw was a creature with finely tuned senses. It was something he prided himself in; something he depended on. It was those senses that made him so efficient in battle. The fact that someone had been able to fool those senses irked him to no end.

He went over the experience again in his mind. He had travelled ahead of Justan and the rest of group, intending to spy out this Woodblade woman and her companions and determine how much of a threat they were. He had seen the tracks of a horse, a heavy one, perhaps a warhorse like the academy forces liked to use and another horse, somewhat smaller, perhaps a mule.

There had been traces of a scent mingling with the horses, that of a human woman and oiled leather. Those scents could have come from any Roo-Tan woman, but since horses weren’t in common use among the people of Malaroo, it was likely he had found his quarry. But the horse tracks had soon disappeared. Deathclaw had doubled back, but could no longer find the tracks he had followed. Only the woman’s scent had continued on.

That was when Justan had told him what he was dealing with: Illusions. The woman’s staff contained the soul of a rogue horse that had the power to confound his senses. Deathclaw had not been able to abide that thought. No matter how powerful its magic was, could a rogue horse be clever enough to trick his senses? Surely that was impossible.

He had redoubled his efforts, trying to follow the trail while focusing on his senses, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Then he had found it; a discordance; his vision telling him something that his sense of smell disagreed with. Deathclaw smelled water, as if a river was nearby, but his eyes showed him an open clearing of grass. Which one of his senses was incorrect? Or were they both wrong?

Just then, a breeze had blown across his skin, carrying with it a cool note. There was a shift in the humidity that confirmed to him that water was nearby. Deathclaw crept across the clearing, heading in the direction his skin said the river would be.

Suddenly, the illusions had disappeared. Disoriented, he had found himself standing not ten feet from the banks of a narrow, slow moving river. That was the moment when Tarah Woodblade had appeared to Justan and the others at the camp. Deathclaw realized that he had gone quite off course. Justan was over two miles away.

Hissing in anger, Deathclaw had dived into his memories of the illusions, trying to sort out his senses once more, doing his best to determine how they had betrayed him and vowing not to let it happen again. He was so preoccupied that he had allowed a group of trolls to sneak up on him. Too engrossed in his thoughts to bother battling such a minor threat, he had climbed a tree.

More trolls had slinked up the riverbank to join the others. Their numbers had increased until the chemical scent of their slime began disrupting his memories. Deathclaw paused in his thoughts to hiss at them and something occurred to him. His reptilian eyes narrowed.
Sneaking trolls
?

He tore his mind away from its analysis of the illusions and focused on his current situation. Trolls don’t sneak. They are mindless beasts that plod about aimlessly until they sense food. Then they screech and run for their prey. The silence of this troll horde was uncharacteristic.

The palm of his sword hand itched even more and Deathclaw looked down to see that the tiny star-shaped scar was glowing a dull red. The fine scales around the scar sizzled. Star was more than eager. The sword had finally awakened. It hadn’t been this eager for use for months. Not since it had destroyed that troll behemoth on the outskirts of the Tinny Woods.

Star’s power normally changed with the time of day. Its blade caused burning wounds, its heat strongest at night when the stars were bright and weakest at mid-day. However, it always burned hot for trolls. Star loved killing trolls more than anything. Deathclaw figured it had something to do with the soul bound to the weapon, but try as he might, it wouldn’t speak to him.

We are coming
, said Justan through the bond and Deathclaw got the sense that he and Gwyrtha were heading in a straight line towards him. Gwyrtha was in her larger form and was being hampered by the thick nature of the Malaroo forest.
How did you get so far away from us
?

There was no sense hiding the truth from Justan.
The witch’s staff disrupted me
, he admitted ruefully.
It will not happen again
.

His eyes moved back down to the glowing scar. It itched but did not hurt. He reached towards it with the forefinger of his other hand and felt the heat rising from it. He wondered if he could set a troll on fire by simply touching them with his hand. But fighting trolls with fire in such a confined space would be foolhardy.

Not yet, Star
, he thought. The being inside the blade did not respond mentally, but seemed all the more eager.

Deathclaw shifted his position on the branch in order to get a better look at the trolls below. Their beady eyes were wild, their jaws opening and closing with hungry soundless rage. Deathclaw cocked his head. “Peculiar.”

The trolls froze and Deathclaw heard the labored breathing of another creature approaching. Deathclaw craned his neck but could not see it, the tree’s thick leaves in the way. Then the ranks of the trolls slowly parted to allow the newcomer into their midst.

It was unlike any troll Deathclaw had ever seen. It was half a head shorter than the others and the upper half of its torso was covered in a slimy mat of red hair. It looked up at him with trollish eyes, but it had a human nose. Then it opened its mouth and let out a hungry hiss.

The troll-thing’s mouth was a deformed gash that opened diagonally across its face as if its jaw were unhinged on one side. Its teeth were square nubs and its tongue was short and pink. The trolls around it opened up their mouths and hissed along with it.

Deathclaw resisted the urge to jump down and face the thing. He thought back to the strange creatures that Xedrion’s men had found when he and Justan had first met the Protector. They hadn’t shared the same deformities, but they had also been a mix of troll and other beasts.

He reached through the bond and sent Justan an image of what he was looking at.
Justan, one of these creatures is wrong. The other trolls seem to see it as a leader
.

Justan’s reply was quick.
I was wondering if we would see more of those things. Switch to mage sight. See if the Rings of Stardeon are involved
.

The rings had disappeared at the end of the war, cut from the hands of the dying Ewzad Vriil. All the Mage School’s searches had proved fruitless. One prevailing theory was that they had somehow been stolen by the renegade mage Arcon. He had been seen at Ewzad’s side during the war, but had also gone missing.

Deathclaw did as Justan asked, reaching inside his mind to that place between his eyes where his sight was controlled. His vision shifted and he saw the star-shaped scar on his palm flare a fiery red. The troll thing, however, merely dimmed in coloration, the inherent earth magic in the bodies of all trolls the only thing he saw different.

“
Nothing
,” he said aloud and through the bond. Creatures that had been changed by the Rings of Stardeon glowed with a violent mix of elemental magic. Deathclaw’s own skin rippled with the rippling strands of magic that infused his every cell.

Strange
, Justan replied.
Well, I suppose we should be relieved. Things would be even worse if the rings had ended up in Malaroo
.

Deathclaw again felt the urge to jump down to the mutated creature. It was a strange urge. Out of curiosity, he reached inside his mind again and switched to spirit sight. His eyes widened.

A soft gray mist emanated from the thing, linking it to the trolls around it. This same gray mist reached up into the tree where Deathclaw sat. It was wrapped around him like a tentacle, grasping, but held back by the protective nature of the bond. This creature was trying to control him. Deathclaw showed Justan what he had seen.

This thing has bewitching magic
, Justan replied, his thoughts shocked.

Deathclaw nodded in understanding.
That is how it controls the trolls
.

Hold tight. We’ll be right there,
Justan promised.

Coming
! Gwyrtha agreed. She picked up speed, pushing aside smaller trees, forcing Justan and Jhonate to endure the whipping of the recoiling branches as they surged ahead of Willum and the rest of the group.

They were mere minutes away, but Deathclaw looked down at the deformed thing below and didn’t feel like waiting. He reached for the bandoleer of throwing knives that crossed his chest. It was a gift from Hugh the Shadow. Deathclaw had practiced with the blades obsessively until they felt like an extension of his own body. He drew a knife and smiled enjoying the opportunity to put his newly learned skill to use.

He waited for the creature to open its misshapen mouth again, then threw the knife with a flick of his wrist. The blade flew true, piercing its stub of a tongue and continuing through the base of its jaw, protruding out diagonally from its flesh. Hot red blood poured down its neck.

The thing clutched at its mouth and throat, screeching in pain and surprise. The trolls surrounding it joined in. The noise pierced the silence of the forest and Deathclaw flinched, the sudden sound hurting his sensitive ears.

He drew another knife, but the creature backed away through the ranks of the trolls it commanded. Just before it passed out of view, it made a slashing gesture with one hand. The troll horde burst into motion.

They began clawing madly at the trunk of the magnolia tree, their wicked claws cutting deep furrows in its bark. Deathclaw let out a questioning chirp. Were they trying to tear the tree down? He wasn’t too concerned. It was a stout tree. Then two of them leapt, using the claws on their hands and feet to scramble over their brethren and begin to climb the trunk.

Deathclaw hissed. He had never seen trolls do that before. If they saw prey in a tree, they would pace around it for hours waiting for prey to come within reach, but they didn’t ever climb.

The lanky trolls came quickly. As soon as the first troll was within range Deathclaw struck at it with his tail, hoping to dislodge it. His tail barb pierced one of its beady eyes, but the troll didn’t so much as flinch from the pain. It let go of the trunk with one hand to clutch at his tail, but Deathclaw swung it out of the troll’s reach.

He looked around, but there was no other tree close enough to jump to. Deathclaw reached up over his shoulder and grasped his sword. He felt a surge of eagerness from the spirit bound to the weapon as the scar on his hand touched the matching symbol on its handle. He pulled the blade from the sheath and saw that it was as red hot as his scar.

Very well, Star. It is your turn
, he thought.

The troll knew no fear. It pulled itself closer towards him, reaching with one arm, the glow of the sword’s blade gleaming in its one good eye. Deathclaw lashed out with Star. With a flash of white fire, the blade took off the troll’s grasping arm at the elbow.

He swung again, carving a molten line through the troll’s head, parting its skull as if it were made of jelly. The troll burst into flame. As it fell from its perch in the tree, its body collided with the troll beneath it. Both of them plummeted into the reaching horde beneath them.

The mass of trolls, standing in a pool of their own slime, combusted, sending a ball of fire up the trunk of the tree. Deathclaw cringed as the burst of heat singed his lower body. Chaos erupted below him. Burning trolls screeched and ran in all directions. Flames climbed the bark of the tree.

Deathclaw hissed in irritation at himself. He had fought enough trolls that he should have known how this situation was going to end. Now he was high in the tree, surrounded by flames with no easy way down. Smoke filled the air, causing his eyes to water.

What was that? Deathclaw are you okay
? Justan asked.

Yes
, Deathclaw replied. He coughed, grumbling to himself as he glanced at the burning ground below. This was going to hurt. He sheathed his sword, ran as far along the nearest thick branch as he could, and leapt, hoping to land outside of the blaze.