They took a turn and finally found a light source, though it was dim and low to the ground. Seeing stones had been wedged into the cave walls here, though they were too far apart to offer any real illumination. They were rougher than Frederick was used to seeing, unpolished as opposed to the smooth, bright ones the Trizians had, and without clean cut edges like the ones affixed to walls and set in silver plates in the castle.
“What are these?” Elayne’s voice was lighter than usual, the anger having fallen away. She was kneeling down near one of the dim stones, but her fingers were tracing over marks made in the wall just above it.
“Dwarvish,” Bix piped up from atop Rosalind’s shoulders, and she leaned him closer to the markings. “I can’t read it exactly, but I recognize some of these symbols. That one’s ore and that one looks like goat? Or maybe blueberry.”
“You think they’re still around?” asked Rosalind.
“Doubtful.” Frederick ran the light of his sword up the wall. There were counting marks as well, some of the few dwarven characters he knew, and they went quite high. “They probably mined this place til it was hollow and moved on.” He’d heard stories from some of the northern soldiers raiding abandoned dwarven mines and chasing out goblins who had gotten too comfortable inside.
“Dwarves.” Gramps hadn’t spoken since he’d been given the herb, but the word had inspired him apparently, and he said it with a certain disdain.
“Gramps, please.” Neoma whispered, but even that echoed in the caves.
“Please, what?” he lolled, “They’re always leaving husks behind, and—”
Neoma rattled the urn and stopped him from continuing. She looked back at the others. “The dwarves weren’t kind when the humans took over Heulux.”
Frederick wondered if the elf actually remembered the experience—it had been at least a thousand years prior—or if he simply held a grudge like so many often did.
“Not kind?” Gramps said, “Profiteering, stirring up trouble just to prolong the war? That’s more than not kind. That’s downright evil.”
“And yet you chose to live at the base of their mountain. Almost like you like being pissed off at their descendants.”
Gramps grumbled something back about good smoked meats and how that one dwarf down the road wasn’t such a bad fella.
After a time, Frederick could feel the speed of the group had slowed. He could have pushed on, but without the sun, he could only measure the day by their growing fatigue. They wouldn’t have a fire, but there was no wind to chill them in a small alcove off the tunnel he chose for resting. They shared some bread and cheese from Neoma’s pantry, and when there had been questions about what they would do, Frederick quickly jumped in. It wouldn’t do any good to have them anxious and tired, so he lied about their prospects come the morning—or whenever they woke up—and instead sat up against the cave wall while the others fell asleep in the eerie quiet.
He knew he should sleep too, but his mind was restless. He wanted to be angry with them, but it wasn’t the clumsiness of the elf or even the conviction of the duchess that had got him here, that was squarely his own decision. At least, he thought, casting a glance out on their sleeping forms, they weren’t here without him, but when they escaped the tunnels—or rather, if—they were still headed for the other side of the country and unimaginable dangers there.
He looked down at his hand, and it tingled. Tightening it into a fist, he wondered if even now, in a moment he simply considered what losing the bet with Voss might mean, his own magic was preparing to drain out of him. No, he couldn’t go back without Elayne. She would have to be convinced, somehow, if they were able to get back at all.
The air crackled before him. He almost shouted to whatever was trying to sap his powers that he still had faith in his side of the deal, but quickly recognized the fissure that suddenly split the air in front of him and the dinky that crawled out. It had been quite a while since Vyvyan had sent him a message.
The little creature scurried like a spider with its weird, pulsing eyes and spindly legs to hover a few inches from his nose. “What now?” he whispered.
With a squeak, a fine thread shot out from it, suspending words into the air in a silvery color that caught just enough of the light from a nearby seeing stone to be read.
What in the godless gorge do you think you’re doing? Voss told me you took the Heulux girl on some quest? Are you mad? Has Sh’ey clouded your mind? Quilliam’s nameday ball is on the next moon, and you’re off to gods know where? You know he won’t forgive you if you miss it! Look, I didn’t mean to make you go crazy, and you can do whatever you want, obviously, but you disappearing doesn’t exactly look good for any of us, so I suggest you get your ass back here before the prince notices what’s going on!
Frederick watched the last word appear and then disappear, staring at the space it left. The dinky waved one of its many arm-legs at him, awaiting a reply. His skill with the dinkies had evolved from Vyvyan’s insistence on using them, but he could only use an existing one to send a message back. This was his only chance, but he couldn’t quite think of what to say.
Then there was a sound, a sort of shuffling that came from farther off than where his companions lay. He squinted into the darkness of the tunnel, but the dinky scurried back into his view, waving frantically. “Screw off,” he whispered, waving it away so that it popped back through the fissure and was gone.
He stood silently, still listening, and followed the sound. It became louder, a sort of airy noise, and he wondered if it might be a way out. They had taken twists and turns, choosing this or that fork based on if one of them insisted they felt a breeze and collective instinct, so he knew he couldn’t go far and hope to find them again, but he didn’t have to.
Frederick came around a turn and nearly brought his foot down onto a mass of grey-green skin. It shimmered in the seeing stone light with a thin coat of something sticky, rising and falling with a heavy, labored breath, the exhale loud and rattling. He froze, one leg suspended, his muscles tensing. Waking the troll would mean catastrophe, but waking all three? That would be death.
He returned his foot to the ground behind him then cocked his head. They were most definitely trolls, humanoid with two legs and two arms and a face made up to look somewhat like a man, but then something about them was odd. They were big, with thick limbs of bony, plated skin, but these ones were quite chubby, even for trolls. He’d only seen the goliath beings on a few occasions, most notably one who had been captured and used as labor in a quarry to the east and another who had bitten a man’s head off so cleanly he had looked like a doll in a child’s hands, but these ones didn’t seem quite big enough to do that. At least not in one bite.
But he remembered the strength they had and the wild urges they didn’t seem able to contain, and losing your head in any number of bites was just as bad, so he backed away without a sound. He made his way back to the others, listening for what he knew now was troll snoring, growing distant but still rattling in the depth of the tunnels. He shook Elayne awake first.
She rolled over and blinked up at him, the soft glow of one of the seeing stones falling over her face. She smiled at him—really smiled—and he instinctively returned it before her face made a sudden change. He held a finger up to his mouth to indicate silence, then pointed at the others. She furrowed her brow as if she wanted to ask, then huffed, understanding the urgency on his face, and began to rouse Rosalind and Bix.
“What? What’s going on?” Rosalind’s voice echoed through the cave, and both Frederick and Elayne shushed her harshly.
Frederick listened again, confirming he could still hear the heavy, sleeping breaths of the trolls. He spoke lowly, “We need to move on from here.”
“That can’t have been more than a few hours,” Neoma yawned, likely louder than she meant, and Frederick flailed to keep her quiet. She pouted and said in a harsh whisper, “I’m just saying!”
He rubbed at his eyes. “We need to move regard
less. There’s something back there.” He jerked his head toward the far end of the tunnel.
“What?” Elayne’s voice was as low as his. At least she understood the danger, even if she didn’t quite realize that knowing exactly what it was wouldn’t help any of them.
Frederick mumbled, “Few trolls is all, come on, let’s head—”
“A few what?” Bix’s tiny voice pierced the cavern.
“Quiet!” He clenched his fists. “You’ll wake them.”
“Did you say trolls?” Rosalind was breathing heavier now, holding her staff tightly in two hands.
“I think he did.”
“Oh, gods, in this tiny space?”
“We don’t even know which way is out!” Their voices were piling atop one another, each louder than the last.
“Yes, yes, okay? Troooolls.” He drew out the word, raising his voice to silence the others. “And yes, they eat kobolds, and elves, and humans, and basically anything they can get their claws into—especially slow, weak ones, so we need to go. Now.”
They stared back at him, eyes wide like a group of children who had just been told a ghost story and left alone in the dark. Guilt needled at him for a moment, but then it was replaced by their same fear. Not because he was responsible for them, truth be told he’d been responsible for dumber and even less skilled soldiers, and not because they had to move on. No, this fear was due to the silence.
There was a shuffling, a genuine shuffling this time, followed by a noise like a small creature that had been blown up to an unreal size. It screeched, and the shuffling sped up. They were coming.
“Run.”
CHAPTER 17
They took off down the cavern at top speed. With only a quick glance over his shoulder, Frederick could just see the lumbering figures of the trolls in the dark, banging into the walls and ceiling as they gave chase. They were huge and fat, their heads round with odd tufts of hair, bulging eyes, and tongues that hung out. Trolls were always hungry and whether it was for food or destruction, neither would turn out well for his crew.
Elayne screamed as she tumbled. “Keep running!” he shouted, doubling back to grab her arm and pull her to her feet. She was quick to get up, and he pushed her to go on ahead of him. Just as he started off behind, there was a slash in the air before him, making him stop short.
A dinky popped out and started writing frantically. In messy, angry script the words began to form: How dare you tell me to screw off, Frederick! But he swiped at the dinky hard enough to knock it out of the way, ducked under the fissure, and just kept running. The trolls were gaining, and they shook the cavern with every stomp. Their screeches had gotten louder too, almost playful if they hadn’t been so piercing.
The tunnel opened up into a larger, round chamber. The rough-cut seeing stones were abundant here, and they could see the space had multiple passages running off of it. Tables and chairs, worn with use, were strewn about, and a number of broken pickaxes and shovels had been abandoned with the spent mine. The abrupt change from miles of unending tunnel to old living quarters brought them to a stop, but the wind off one of the troll’s claws as it swiped at them made them scatter.
“Stay together!” Frederick shouted as he watched Rosalind and Neoma disappear in completely different directions. Elayne at least had followed him as he sprinted for one of the narrower tunnels. They pounded the earth as the cavern turned sharply, and he spied a number of small archways dug into the rock wall. She would have run right past, but he pulled her into one of the spaces behind him. It was cramped and dark, but hidden from the main hall, and they pressed themselves up against the back ledge of the alcove.
Elayne was gasping for air, and it was too loud. Frederick wanted to clamp a hand over her mouth but thought better of it. He squeezed her forearm and made her look at him as he took slow, deliberate breaths. Somewhere outside, the cavern rumbled with the trolls throwing themselves around the now empty chamber. He should have been out there, leading them off and cutting them down, but Elayne’s arm was shaking under his hand. She tried to match his breathing, but when she exhaled it was panicky and ragged.
He leaned close to her ear and whispered, “It’s all right.” It was clearly not all right, they both must have known it, but miraculously it seemed to work. “Breathe with me,” he said, and Elayne’s next breath came fuller, clearer.
Then there was a crash as a troll came thundering through the narrow tunnel, raking its claws across the rock walls and tearing away at the stone. It whined and screeched, but it passed by their alcove blindly at full speed, continuing on.
Elayne was biting her lip, a worried brow deep over her dark eyes. A scream pierced the air from somewhere else, un-troll-like, and she gasped. “We have to help them.”
Frederick nodded. “On three, back the way we came. One—”
“Two, three!” she shouted, grabbing his hand and running. Well, she was either brave or completely stupid.
Bix was racing across the room, his big ears flapping as he went, a little shriek filling up the chamber. He was fast, but the troll could cover more ground, and it reached down for him, just barely grabbing at the back of his coat, tripping him up so that he rolled away. “Hey!” Rosalind shouted from behind it, stealing its attention so that it turned, ungracefully. “Leave him alone!” She stood her ground for a split second until the creature set its sights on her, then she fled in the opposite direction.
Elayne ran for the fallen Bix, and Frederick stopped short, whistling sharply. Trolls were massive in Frederick’s memory, but this one seemed so much smaller. It was still heads taller than him, but just one didn’t seem that difficult to take on. He pulled out his sword, and the troll charged him blindly as if he weren’t leveling a sharpened blade at him. He held his ground, ready to impale the thing, when Elayne’s voice screamed his name.
He jumped back just in time to miss being impaled on a yellowed, jagged claw as a second troll came at him from the side. The two barreled into one another, splaying out in opposite directions just long enough for Frederick to get to his feet.
The two took staggered steps toward him, and then one squealed and shook its head as a stone pelted it in the temple. The other stopped, leaned around its companion, and was squarely knocked between the eyes by another rock. Elayne was gathering up loose stones and pelting them upward at the trolls, shouting nonsense to distract them. She’d certainly gotten her breathing under control. Bix let loose another stone from his slingshot and got one of them in the knee.
Neoma’s screams lit up the room, echoing down from another tunnel. Frederick hurried around the trolls to come up to Elayne and Bix, and Rosalind appeared from another tunnel. Only one left, he thought, and shouted at them to follow. The elf’s screams had come from a wider chamber blocked by the third troll. Between its legs, Neoma’s frail body could be seen, crouching down at the dead end. They shouted up at the creature and it glanced over its meaty shoulder at them, but didn’t seem to care, going back for the elf. She screamed again as it came down toward her, and Elayne pelted her final rock at its head.
With a grunt, it turned on them again, and Frederick alighted his sword. When the thing saw the fire, its entire demeanor changed. Its eyes bugged, even more than normal, and it tripped over itself to get away, nearly crushing Neoma in the process. Gramps was squawking at her, urging her on as she scurried between its legs and just barely out of the way as the troll flattened itself against the wall and threw its hands up in its face.
“Oh, you don’t like that, eh?” Frederick waved the sword high above his head.
“Come on!” Elayne tugged on his arm. “We’re all here now, let’s go!”
They fled from the space back into the round room. Bix pointed to the farthest tunnel from them. “I saw light coming from there!”
They thundered for the tunnel, and Frederick let his sword go out. The trolls were on them again, and gaining, but they could see the dim light of a breaking morning and smell the crisp air of the out
doors, and they piled out of the cave in an instant.
Frederick stopped and turned as the others fled past him. Only one troll could fit through the opening at a time, but it was upon them, raising a claw and swiping at Neoma just as she ran by, but Frederick was faster, slashing with his sword and cutting across the creature’s leg. It faltered and fell with a crash to the ground.
Troll skin was thick, and the creature barely bled though the slice may well have cleaved a human, but the troll threw back its head, took in a deep breath, and roared up to the open sky.
Frederick stumbled backward as it cried, clawed hands clamped over its knee and rolling from side to side. The other two toddled over to it, their concern no longer with their meal, but their fallen comrade. His arms fell lax at his sides and he cocked his head, looking on at them. Surely he hadn’t hurt it all that much, and yet it had come to a full stop.
“Oh.” Elayne’s voice was soft as she came to stand at his side. “Oh, no.”
“What?”
Elayne’s eyes had gone a bit misty. “They’re just babies.”
Frederick’s jaw dropped. Their fat bellies, big heads, squat limbs, it all made more sense. They were still deadly, of course, but even the fact they’d gotten out of there alive was suddenly much more conceivable.
“Oh, I can’t believe you!” She smacked his arm as the troll wailed before them. The other two had begun to join in now, presumably crying because that was what children did when one started up.
“Me?” He knocked into his own chest with a fist. “That thing would have eaten you!”
“It doesn’t know what it’s doing.” She pointed at the troll then glanced at her own hand. “I wonder.”
Frederick watched her as she studied her hand. “You can’t be serious.”
“Neoma?” She turned away from him. Gods, of course she was. “Do you think you can help him with his wound?”
She's All Thaumaturgy Page 14
