“Ignore them. Gwyrtha is enjoying the attention,” hissed Deathclaw as he neared the top of the hill. There was drying blood on the side of his face from the glancing blow he had taken in his tumble through the grass, but the shallow wound had already closed. Squirrel was sitting on the raptoid’s shoulder, his arms crossed proudly.
“Ignore that?” Maryanne wondered as Rufus, nearly twenty feet tall, twisted and threw a pouncing Gwyrtha over his shoulder to crash through a stand of trees. The sound of splintering branches filled the air.
“Deathclaw!” Fist said and the raptoid grunted helplessly as the ogre wrapped him in a great hug, lifting him off of the ground and forcing Squirrel to hop over to Maryanne. Grinning, Fist set him down. “It is so good to see you in person after so long.”
Deathclaw arched his back and rotated his arms in their sockets. “I too am pleased that you have rejoined us,” he admitted grumpily. “But must you crush me each time we meet?”
“Only if it’s been longer than three months,” Fist promised. He grasped Maryanne’s hand. “Deathclaw, this is Maryanne.”
“I gotta say, you look as dangerous as Fist says you are,” she said, holding her free hand out to the raptoid.
Deathclaw accepted her hand, shaking it as he gave her an assessing look, his reptilian eyes focusing on the bow that was slung over her shoulder. “Fist says that you are deadly with the bow.”
“The deadliest,” she confirmed. She took in the bandoleer that slanted across the raptoid’s chest. “I can throw a knife too.”
A smile appeared on Deathclaw’s face, exposing his razor sharp teeth. “Then you will make a welcome addition to our pack.”
There was a loud harrumph from behind Fist. “Well? You gonna say hello to me, you high-falutin’ dragon?”
Deathclaw arched a scaly brow. “Hello, dwarf.”
Lenny looked at him expectantly. “That it? I ain’t seen you since the end of the war and that’s all you gotta say?”
Deathclaw cocked his head as he tried to think of something else. “It shall be . . . nostalgic having your loud voice around once more.”
“Good ’nuff,” Lenny said. He pulled one of the Buster Juniors off of his belt. “Wanna see the new magical throwin’ hammers I made?”
As Deathclaw walked over to inspect Lenny’s newest weapons, Maryanne pulled Fist closer and whispered into his ear. “Did you tell him?”
Fist shook his head. Justan had been the only person he’d told about her pregnancy. “No, but he knows that we are together now. He’s just excited because he thinks we need more ranged fighters in our tribe.”
“Oh,” she said, relaxing. “He said pack, so I wasn’t sure.”
“That’s what he calls our tribe,” Fist replied. “It’s a raptoid thing.”
One of the Roo-Tan soldiers trotted up to them. He was Drem bin Leeths, the Protector’s 14th born and son to his fifth wife. Meldreth bin Shun. He wore the yellow ribbons of his mother in his braids. “Excuse me, Master Fist. Do you think you could get the rogue horses to stop fighting? They are tearing up the landscape and I know my father will make us come back out here and clean it up.”
Fist looked back at them and winced. The Roo-Tan didn’t see all wildlife as sacred or anything, but there was such a thing as general respect. The two titanic beasts were still at their wrestling match and the once pristine field was now littered with uprooted trees and deep gashes of brown earth where their claws had torn up clumps of grass. While he watched, Gwyrtha picked up a large tree branch in her mouth and dove for Rufus’ legs, taking his feet out from under him.
“Uh, yes, Son of Xedrion. I’m sorry about that,” said Fist. Most of the Roo-Tan soldiers had given him permission to use their name quite readily, but this one had been most proper with local tradition. He had been the only one of them to continue calling the ogre Master Fist after he had asked them not to. “I’ll talk to them right now.”
Fist closed his eyes and reached out through the bond. Justan?
Fist! You’re getting really close now. I’m still stuck here as the Protector is talking with Aloysius. I’ll tell you what. Have them take you to the Palace and wait for me at the training arena. I’ll make sure to get out of the meetings for a while to come and see you.
This is about Gwyrtha, Fist replied. He opened his eyes so that Justan could get a mental image of what was happening. At that moment, Rufus had Gwyrtha by the tail and had been trying to keep away from the sharp claws on her front end as she whipped about, trying to grab him. Drem bin Leeths asked me to put a stop to it, but Rufus won’t stop unless she does too. I was hoping you could reach out to her. Maybe if we both talk to them?
Justan watched them through Fist’s eyes and gave out an awed chuckle at the carnage they were inflicting on the local greenery. I can see the problem. I will talk to her. Also, I think you are close enough that I can connect you together so that you can speak to her directly.
Thank you, Fist replied. Smiling, he reached out to Rufus and demanded that he stop. Both rogue horses paused. What Justan had done worked and he could hear both of them now in his mind.
Why?? They said at the same time. Fist sent them a mental explanation of Drem’s issues with what they were doing. Rufus twisted around as if noticing the destruction all around them for the first time.
Oooh, uh . . . Rufus said, his thoughts embarrassed. He grabbed a nearby fallen tree and tried to stuff it back into the ground, then grimaced as it fell back over. Sorry.
Fist! I can hear you! sent Gwyrtha and she began to run towards him.
“Uh, Maryanne, you might want to stand back,” he warned.
Luckily, Gwyrtha shrunk back to her regular size along the way, but she still hit him with enough force to knock him onto his back. She was covered in contusions from her tussle with Rufus, but happy as could be as she licked his face repeatedly. You are here, Fist!
“Okay! Okay! I’m happy to see you too,” he assured her trying to fend off her wet attack.
I love you! she exclaimed.
“I know, I love you too, but you need to let me up!” he said and tried to push her off him. It took a minute to extract himself from her attentions and when he finally climbed to his feet, his face and hands were soaked.
Maryanne was holding out a handkerchief. “It’s got a couple old boogers on it, but it’s gotta be better than what you’re covered in.”
“Thanks,” he said, and attempted to wipe off the worst of the saliva from his face. “She was happy to see me.”
“I noticed. Is this how it is when all the girls greet you?” she teased.
He looked back at her, his face pained. “Wait until we come across Beth.”
* * *
Tarah sat alone on one of the benches along the wall of the Protector’s Conference Room, holding back tears as she thought of the way Djeri’s thoughts had been when she’d tried to talk to him through their bond. Being stuck in this room full of people wasn’t helping.
She would have rather been about anywhere else, including on one of Tolynn’s long runs, but the Protector wanted her there in case her opinion was needed. Which was ridiculous because they weren’t even talking about anything she would be of any help with.
This was the second full day of discussion and all that had been spoken about was the treaty between the Mer-Dan Collective and the Roo-Tan. Aloysius was skillfully deflecting things as best he could, which hadn’t been too hard on the first day because he didn’t have the treaty or his councilors with him, so the discussion had turned into the philosophy of such a union.
It was all dreadfully boring stuff. The only moment of interest had been early in the day when Xedrion had brought in an unexpected guest to the discussions. His fourth wife, Alexis bin Hoon, had been brought in as an expert in Roo history and theology. The Protector felt that her knowledge and contacts within the Roo-Dan would help with ironing out the treaty as well as perhaps give some insight to the goings on in KhanzaRoo.
Alexis
had entered the room proudly, a plain faced woman with auburn hair and a regal bearing, bracketed by two female prison guards. She wore no shackles and treated the guards as if they were liveried servants. If she was a prisoner, the conditions of her incarceration must have been quite luxurious. Alexis looked hale and healthy and was wearing a fine embroidered dress that accentuated her obvious pregnancy with the Protector’s child.
There had been momentary outrage upon her first appearance, mainly from Jhonate, who had needed to be escorted from the room by her mother. But once Jhonate had reappeared calm and collected, Alexis had been treated with kindness and respect from all present.
This was the woman who had committed treason by instigating the attack on Sir Edge that had led to Yntri Yni’s death and who had manipulated the Protector of the Grove with bewitching magic. This was a crime that the Roo-Tan usually punished by death, yet still she was being treated like some honored guest. Just because she was pregnant.
That status hadn’t been nearly as helpful for Tarah.
Aloysius had made an offhand remark about Tarah’s pregnancy during a meeting the day before, an oversight that she was fairly certain that he had made maliciously. Word had gotten round to all the Roo-Tan at the palace overnight and ever since then, people had been treating her differently.
The Roo-Tan men treated her as if she had become so delicate that just speaking to her could break her bones, which was annoying enough, but the women were the worst. A few of them made lewd remarks, while most of the others sent her disgusted glances. She wasn’t sure what was going through their heads, if they found it offensive that she had gotten pregnant outside of marriage or that the father of her unborn child was a dwarf.
Right now, the women in the room were showing their displeasure by refusing to look her in the eye. They wouldn’t even sit by her. Not that she had wanted the company of any of them, but it was an obvious slight.
No sooner had she made that particular observation, than a person crossed the room and approached her. It was Durza, the gorc assistant of the Stranger. She was wearing a red wig that day, piled high with curls, and a frilly blue dress.
She plopped down on the bench next to Tarah, thankfully wearing only the slightest of perfume. Beth must have spoken to her about it after the room-clearing concoction she had worn on the first day of the talks. To Tarah’s irritation, the gorc reached out and grabbed her hand,
“It’s okay, Tarah lady person,” Durza tried unsuccessfully to whisper. “Havin’ babies is a good thing for humans. You know it ain’t gonna be no orc or tear you up on the way out and it’ll be all sweet and smellin’ good and won’t scratch you up none or bite you while its givin’ suckles.”
Tarah wrinkled her nose at the gorc, but Beth had already cautioned her to be nice to the beast, so she tried to give a pleasant reply. “Thanks. Uh, have you had any children, Durza?”
“I’m a pretty-type gorc, so yeah,” she said with a nod. “But only seven. My baby maker stopped its workings after that last-un. Sometimes makin’ a orc’ll do that to a girl.”
Tarah was surprised that the gorc was still alive. She knew a lot about goblinoid culture, both from the things her father had taught her and from the tracks of the creatures she had studied over the years.
One in every ten goblin pregnancies produced a gorc and one in every ten gorc pregnancies produced an orc. A female gorc that gave birth to an orc and survived was highly respected in their tribe, but any female goblinoid that couldn’t bear children was seen as worthless and were usually thrown out, left to starve on their own.
Tarah looked over at Durza with a new perspective. She squeezed the gorc’s hand. “Was it your bewitching magic that saved you?”
Durza nodded. “Yup. I maked ’em be nice to me ’til the old mistress learnt what I could do. Then I runned and hided.” She smiled at Tarah through red painted lips. “But now I has Talon and we both has the master. I’cn be a proper lady now and nobody wants me havin’ no nother babies.”
“Good for you,” said Tarah. She let the gorc continue to hold her hand as they sat quietly together through the boring talks. Then, finally, the subject changed to something of interest.
“Very well, Warlord,” said Xedrion. “We’ll speak of the coming war. You said earlier that you know how to kill the Troll Mother. Tell us how.”
Aloysius smiled, steepling his fingers before him as he looked down on all of the humans from his seven-foot height. “I conducted extensive research on the history of Malaroo before I decided to add the Mer-Dan collective to my empire. That included research on the old Roo Nation and its downfall so I have known about the Troll Mother for some time.
“As part of this research I learned a great deal about the nature of troll behemoths, a subject which I already found fascinating as they are one of the ten monsters of legend. Now, books describing how to kill a behemoth are not easy to find. Many scholars have developed theories over the years, but few have been proven.”
“Sir Hilt has killed one,” said Jhonate.
Hilt cleared his throat. “That was mostly Deathclaw.”
“He burned it to death,” said Sir Edge. “Something that will be much more difficult to do in this place. It’s so large that attempting to do so would be incredibly dangerous.”
“As well as impossible,” said Xedrion. “If burning it was the answer, it would already have died centuries ago. The Roo-Tan have tried that tactic many times, not to mention the fires caused by lightning strikes. The Troll Swamps burn and live again. The Troll Mother always seems untouched.”
“That would be because your people lacked the basic understanding of the way a behemoth’s physiology works,” Aloysius explained. “Tell me, Sir Hilt, as you seem to be an expert in these matters. What happens if you cut a behemoth in half?”
Hilt frowned as he tried to see how this was relevant. “It regenerates.”
“Does it become two behemoths?” Aloysius asked.
“No. Generally, the halves rejoin,” he said.
“What if they are unable to rejoin?” the gnome said. “Would you then be facing two behemoths?”
Hilt scratched his head as he gave it thought. “I don’t think so. If it were that easy to make more behemoths there would be a lot more of them.”
“That’s right,” Sir Edge agreed. “Cutting pieces off of a behemoth just creates more trolls.”
“Indeed,” said the gnome. “I was able to obtain a copy of a rare manuscript written by Scholar Bonadess, a gnome that was there to witness the creation of the Troll Mother itself. When Mellinda cut the creature in two, one half lived on and regenerated while the other half simply withered, parts of it breaking away to form more trolls. Therein lies our answer.”
“How does that help us?” asked Alexis bin Hoon, her voice haughty. “We cannot simply cut a creature that large in twain.”
Aloysius gave her a patient smile. “The question you should be asking is, how does the troll behemoth decide which half lives and which half dies?”
There were thoughtful frowns all around the room.
Sir Edge was the first to reply. “Are you suggesting that a behemoth is like a basilisk?”
“A very apt comparison,” said Aloysius with an approving nod. “Indeed, somewhere inside the monstrous beast is a central mind. This is where the tattered scrap of soul that remains in the behemoth resides and if we can find and destroy it . . .”
“The whole thing dies,” said Hubrin excitedly.
Hilt shook his head. “I don’t know that I agree. I’ve read many accounts of warriors fighting behemoths and there is never an account of a lucky strike that kills the whole beast. The only successful attempts were when teams of warriors were able to starve it while cutting away at it until it lost the energy to heal.”
“Except for what happened with Deathclaw,” Justan said. “You were there. He burned through the middle of it and the whole thing combusted. He may have hit a critical weak point, this brain Warlord Aloys
ius is speaking of.”
“I think that was just the power of his sword,” Hilt said. “The fire was so intense it just burned quicker than it could heal.”
“I would say that both of you are correct,” Aloysius replied. “In Scholar Bonadess’ tome, he stated that Mellinda searched for this central brain and could not find it. At first. You see, it seems the brain is dispersed in the behemoth’s collective tissues and only forms when it has to make a specific decision. Then the brain dissolves into the rest of the mass.
“Scholar Bonadess describes it as a cylindrical stalk with a pulsating pink brain on the end. Mellinda was able to get it to form by using her bewitching magic to compel the behemoth,” Aloysius finished.
“So all we need to do is go to the swamps and get one of our witches to force its brain to the surface, then kill it!” said Hubrin.
Aloysius chuckled. “It will likely not be that simple. While in the swamps with the Stranger, I attempted to do just that. I had Durza try to call the Troll Mother’s brain using her considerable powers but to no success. It occurred to me then that since the behemoth we face is a massive beast covering hundreds of square miles. The scrap of soul that controls the creature can’t be stretched over that vast distance. We will need to find the general area where it resides if we are to succeed.”
Xedrion was nodding, a plan forming in his mind. “We will need multiple small groups, each force with a witch powerful enough to hide them from the Troll Mother and then summon its brain when the location is found.”
“Precisely what I was thinking,” Aloysius agreed. “I believe that our two nations combined have the resources to make this possible.”
The meeting then devolved into a discussion about how to properly allocate resources between the two nations. Disagreements erupted and the meeting dragged on for another hour before the Protector decided it was time to take a break.
Behemoth (The Jharro Grove Saga Book 6) Page 28
