Don't Feed the Trolls

by Jacob Peppers

  “I’m w—” He paused at a chitter from the squirrel perched on his shoulder, wincing. “We’re with you.”

  They all turned to regard Mariana then, and the woman sat silently for a moment before letting out a heavy sigh. “Oh, I’m going, damn you. I would just rather the plan have a possible ending besides ‘and they died horribly.’”

  Dannen grinned. He’d been through a lot in his time—shit, he’d been through a lot in the last twenty four hours—but he felt pretty fine just then. Maybe the gods knew why these three had chosen to hitch their wagons to his lame horse, he himself had no idea and he realized that he didn’t care. It was enough to know that they had, enough to know that, for reasons beyond his own understanding, they believed in him.

  He nodded slowly. “Right. Well, I’ve been thinking on that. The way I see it, we have no chance of defeating an undead army.”

  Mariana blinked. “I hope this gets better.”

  Dannen laughed. “What I mean is, we can’t beat them, at least not out right. We can’t hope to defeat an entire army anymore than we can hope to push a great tree down. But what if, instead of pushing at the tree uselessly, we dug down into the ground around it, pulled out its roots? I don’t care how big the tree is, how imposing. A tree without roots cannot stand.”

  Mariana grunted. “I’m not real sure what trees have to do with th—”

  “The undead army is the tree,” Tesler interrupted, “and the roots…that’s the necromancer, isn’t it?” he asked, meeting Dannen’s gaze.

  Dannen smiled. The lad might be insane—he spent his time talking with a squirrel, after all—but just because he was insane didn’t mean he was stupid. “That’s right,” he agreed. “The necromancer, this asshole and his brother, they’re the ones who give the undead soldiers power just as the roots are the ones that give the tree power. Without the roots, without the necromancer, the tree, the army cannot stand.”

  They were silent for a time, all of them thinking it through. Finally, Mariana nodded. “So we don’t have to kill an entire undead army, we just have to somehow work our way past it, hoping none of them objects while we walk up and kill their leader.”

  Despite himself, despite the dangers they faced, Dannen found himself smiling. “Exactly.”

  She grunted. “I’m thinking maybe they might have something to say about that.”

  “Oh, it’s there you’re wrong, Mariana,” Dannen answered, meeting the mage’s gaze. “Like Fedder said, I don’t imagine there’ll be much talking. Not at all.”

  The woman nodded then let out a yawn. “Well. I guess I know enough of the plan now to get the nightmares going anyway.” She rose from the table, looking around at them, and Dannen couldn’t help but notice the way her gaze caught on Tesler for several seconds. “I’m going to bed,” she said, “see you all in the morning—assuming something doesn’t try to kill us before then.”

  “You want I should stay with you?” Fedder asked. “For protection, I mean.”

  Mariana snorted. “Don’t worry about it, big guy. If a monster tries to get you during the night, you just give a shout, and I’ll come runnin’, how’s that?”

  Fedder cleared his throat, obviously embarrassed, and Dannen sighed. “See you in the mornin’.”

  “Sure,” she said, “unless I wise up before then.”

  She turned to Tesler, as if waiting for the man to say something, and he grinned nervously. “Goodnight.”

  The woman controlled her expression well, but not so well that Dannen couldn’t see the way her lips turned down into a slight frown and her eyes went hard. Clearly, whatever she had been expecting from the young man had been more than a ‘goodnight.’ She didn’t respond, instead only turning and walking toward one of the rooms.

  “Oh, hold there, lass,” Fedder said, “that’s the biggest bed here, and I thought—”

  “Good,” she snapped without turning back, “then I’ll have plenty of room to roll around in—you know, by myself.” And with that, she slammed the door behind her, doing a pretty thorough job of ending the conversation.

  “Damn,” Fedder said.

  “Yeah,” Dannen agreed.

  “What…what’s gotten into her?” Tesler asked.

  Dannen and the mage shared a look before Fedder turned to regard the young man. “Oh, lad, the problem ain’t what’s gotten into her, see—it’s what hasn’t.”

  Tesler frowned thoughtfully. “I…I don’t understand.”

  The mage sighed. “No, no I don’t expect you do. Anyway, that’s me to bed. I always find killin’ easier on a full night’s rest.” And with that, the big man rose from the chair which gave a dangerous creak before heading toward another of the bedrooms, closing the door behind him.

  Dannen wondered at that, wondered if killing really was easier on a full night’s rest. Mostly, though, he wondered if dying would be.

  “What…what did he mean?”

  Pulled from his thoughts, Dannen turned to regard the young man. “What’s that?”

  “Fedder,” Tesler said, “I…that is, what did he mean? About Mariana.”

  Dannen studied the young man for several seconds then, finally, he sighed. “You know, lad, when dealing with women, it’s okay to be scared. Shit, I think only a fool wouldn’t be. They’re cleverer than us by half and prettier too that can’t be denied. But I’ll tell you something else. I’ve been around for a while—a damn sight longer than I have any right to, you want to know the truth—and I’ve learned something. This world is a real shit show, full of suffering and pain and disappointment. It’s a rare thing when something fine comes along and, when it does, a man has to grab it, to hold onto it as hard as he can for as long as he can. Do you understand?”

  Tesler blinked. “I…I think so.” He glanced at the door leading to the room Mariana had gone inside. “Do you…should I…” He trailed off, unsure of how to finish.

  Dannen wasn’t sure how he’d become a matchmaker, thought that if there was anyone in the entire world less qualified for the job he hadn’t met them, but he gave a slow shake of his head. “I don’t think so, lad. That door looks pretty well closed to me.”

  Tesler let out a weak sigh. “Right.”

  “Oh, don’t look so down, boy,” Dannen said. “The door’s closed now, but it’ll open up again soon enough. And when it does…”

  “I should go through it,” Tesler said, his voice somewhere between determination and outright terror.

  Dannen grinned. “Only a fool would do otherwise. After all, that squirrel of yours might be nice and all, but she’s a bit too small to keep you warm when the nights grow cold.”

  Tesler nodded slowly. “I’m not…good. With people, I mean.”

  Dannen grunted. “Who is?”

  The young man considered that, as if Dannen had just posed some cosmic question, then, finally, he nodded, rising from the table. “Goodnight, Dannen. And…thank you.”

  Dannen watched the young man, the poor fool, shuffle to the last remaining bedroom, a grim expression on his face like a man facing his execution sometime in the near future and trying to build up the courage to face it standing. Which, if Dannen’s own relationships were anything to go by, wasn’t all that far from the truth.

  Tesler walked through the door, closing it behind him. Dannen sat for another few minutes, thinking about a lot of things. He thought of the doll, of Fedder, of Tesler and Mariana and the thing growing between them. Mostly, though, he thought of Clare. He had loved his wife, Val. A woman better than he had ever deserved, and for years following her death, he had sought peace—or at least distraction—from the sadness of his loss in drink. It hadn’t worked, though, and for a long time he had thought there was no point in him being alive, not without her with him.

  But he was still alive, and so too was Clare. A wonderful woman, as different from Val as anyone could be and yet a truly fine thing. A fine thing in a world of shit and he too much a fool to see it until now, now when she was at best a pri
soner—though how long she would remain so he could not know. He wanted to turn back, to find a horse and ride as hard as he could back to Talinseh, but he knew that to do so would be wrong, for in his selfishness he would doom the entire north, perhaps the entire world.

  Still, he considered it. In the end, what stopped him was remembering Hank, the man once known as Honor. A hero, once, but now a man who had succumbed to his own selfishness, and a hero no more. Barely even a man.

  No. He would stay. He would stay, and he would fight as he had promised. Likely, he would die, but better he die fighting for what was right then knifed in some back alley, too drunk to feel the blade go in.

  He sighed, rising and looking around for his room only to realize that there was no other, the house having only three bedrooms, each of them taken by one of his companions. He told himself, as he sat back in the chair, propping his feet up on the table, that he shouldn’t be surprised.

  Men, after all, were fools.

  ***

  The four companions slept in the abandoned house as darkness encroached upon the face of the world. Dannen, once known as the Bloody Butcher, shifted uncomfortably in his slumber, his feet propped on the table, starting awake, from time to time, as he nearly fell from his chair only to drift into a troubled sleep once more. The assassin lay with her back to the door, a scowl on her face even as she slept. The young man cast furtive, uncertain glances at his own door, thinking, until sleep reached out, grasping him in its soft but firm grip, pulling him down into the darkness.

  Fedder the Firemaker, perhaps the world’s most powerful fire mage, slept like a baby.

  Only one among them did not close their eyes in sleep but remained awake. Crouched on the windowsill of the home’s common room, the small squirrel clasped its paws together in front of it, rubbing them anxiously as it stared out into the darkness. It had lived long, the creature, the goddess. It had seen much over the years, it understood much, and so it did not sleep. It only crouched, staring out the window into the darkness. It did not sleep, for neither, it knew, did evil.

  For if one thing was to be said about evil it was this—evil never slept. Evil stirred.

  ***

  The taste of blood filled his mouth as he woke, lying on the tavern floor among shattered ale and a tumbled chair, the one he had sat at moments before. The others who had shared the table with him were gone, Dannen Ateran and all the rest, but he did not mind. He had been alone before, after all, was still alive while those others he had once traveled with, the other Ethics, were all long in their graves.

  What he did mind, though, was that the man had hit him, had dared to hit him. He rose from his chair, running a hand across his bloody lip, then moved toward the door of the common room, staring out of it into the darkness. The man had struck him and he had left. Had he really thought that it would be so easy, that it would be the end of it?

  Well, he was wrong, and he would discover just how wrong he had been. Hank had been sent here to keep an eye on Dannen and the rest of his group, and so he had, but now he would do more than that. Dannen Ateran and his companions did not have any respect, but they would soon. He would make sure of it.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “A beautiful day, ain’t it, Butcher?”

  Dannen frowned, looking over at Fedder. “What’s so beautiful about it?” he muttered. The mage though, was not to be so easily put off his good mood, and a moment later he started to whistle.

  Dannen rolled his eyes, glancing back where Tesler and Mariana walked. The two said nothing to each other, had not spoken in the several hours since they’d left the village of Alberdine behind, at least so far as he knew, but then, they didn’t need to. The glances they shot at each other—always when they thought the other wasn’t looking—said more than enough.

  No, he decided, beautiful wasn’t the word he would use to describe the day. Still, he had to admit that it was better, in many ways, than he’d expected. For one, the temperature had climbed since the day before, and while it was still cold enough that he could see his breath pluming in the air as he walked down the trail away from the mountain, he didn’t think that he was in imminent danger of freezing to death, so there was that. The trail, too, was far easier the farther they went away from the village, and no longer were they on the edge of a mountain where a single step might send them plummeting to a painful death far below.

  They had walked downhill for some time and now the path on which they trod was almost flat. In the distance he could make out what he thought was a forest, one with actual trees, not the scraggly, pathetic things that had dotted the mountainside irregularly. These things, added with the fact that, at least for the moment, no one was trying to kill them, made Dannen understand what had prompted the mage’s optimism. In fact, he thought that, had his back and knees, not to mention his tail bone, not been so sore from a night spent sitting in what he’d decided was the world’s most uncomfortable chair, struggling in a restless sleep that left him more tired instead of less, he might have even shared the man’s mood.

  As it was, it was all he could do to keep from shouting at the young man and woman behind him to shut up despite the fact that they weren’t, strictly speaking, talking.

  “A damned beautiful day,” Fedder repeated, pausing his whistling.

  Dannen sighed, stretching in an effort to work the worst of the kinks out of his back and shoulders. It didn’t help, but at least it distracted him for a few seconds.

  “Back still hurting you?” Fedder asked.

  Half a dozen rejoinders flashed through his mind at that—including punching the big man in the face—but in the end, Dannen decided to forego them. Mostly for health reasons. “Yes.”

  The mage shook his head. “I told you, Butcher. You ought to have slept in the bed with me. I don’t know what that mattress was stuffed with, but I felt like I spent the night sleeping on puppy dog breath and children’s birthday wishes. Can’t remember the last time I had such a good night’s sleep.”

  “That’s great,” Dannen managed through gritted teeth. “Anyway, I’d rather not. Mariana’s already enjoying her jokes, and that one pretty much tells itself.”

  Fedder grunted. “Yeah, she’s a funny one, the girl.”

  “Yeah,” he said, mostly just because he didn’t feel like getting into it. The truth was that, when he thought of Mariana, “funny” wasn’t the first word that came to mind. “Deadly,” maybe, but then, he supposed that could be said for just about any woman he’d ever met.

  They walked on throughout the day, stopping from time to time to take a few minutes to rest—minutes which Dannen spent stretching, groaning, or picking out the rocks which inevitably found their way into his boots by turns. As the day went on and they still hadn’t been attacked by some creature or another, Dannen’s mood began to lighten, and he started to think that maybe Fedder had been right after all. Maybe it really was a beautiful day. The problem, of course, was that in Dannen’s experience, people rarely knew the best times of their lives—or the good times—when they were in them. Instead, they existed within those times without recognizing them, like a man in some artist’s much-lauded masterpiece who had no idea that he existed surrounded by such famed beauty and perfection.

  He told himself to do better, to be better, to appreciate this brief respite from a life largely built on one life-threatening situation after the other and, partially, he succeeded.

  That was when he saw the cows.

  Night was drawing close now, no more than an hour away, perhaps less, and the sun had sunk low on the horizon, casting the world and their surroundings in shadows so that at first, he thought that they were only sleeping.

  But as they drew closer to the nearest, his envy slowly turned to concern. The nearest cow lay on its side only a dozen or so feet away from the road, a position that would have appeared comfortable had it not been for the fact that its head had been completely severed from its shoulders and blood stained the grass around it, almost black
in the near-darkness. Flies buzzed around the body.

  Dannen frowned, looking around. In the field, spread out at irregular intervals, lay other cows, just as dead as the first. There seemed to be no order to the way the animals were killed, some with axe or sword wounds, others with crossbow bolts still sticking out of their bodies. And as Dannen peered closer at the massacre, he saw that the cows had not been the only ones on the receiving end—there were horses, too.

  He studied the dead animals for a few more seconds, thinking, then he turned to glance at the farmhouse. The shadows were lengthening, and so he could not see it as well as he might have, but everything looked quiet, still. Too still, in fact, the sort of stillness that settled over battlefields once the fighting was done and only the dead remained.

  “Was…was it the undead?”

  This from Tesler, the young man clearly unnerved by the senseless slaughter.

  “Easy on him, Butcher,” Fedder whispered out of the side of his mouth, “the lad can speak with animals, remember. Might be some of these here were his friends.”

  Dannen scowled at the mage before turning to the young man. “No, lad. The undead don’t kill for sport like this. This was men.”

  “But…who would—“ Mariana cut off, making a gagging sound in her throat, and in another moment she was stumbling away, a hand held tightly against her mouth.

  “But…why?” Tesler asked in a choked whisper. “I mean…those animals, they didn’t…” He trailed off then, and Dannen saw tears gathering in the man’s eyes before he turned and shuffled away toward where Mariana was currently bent over, her hands on her knees, her breaths coming in shuddering gasps as she struggled not to vomit.

  Dannen watched them for a moment then walked to the nearest animal, waving a hand at the cloud of flies gathered around the corpse before kneeling down to study it. He heard footsteps and glanced up to see the mage standing over him, a frown on his face. “I don’t like this, Fedder. This was recent—within a few hours, no more than that.”