Behemoth (The Jharro Grove Saga Book 6)

by Trevor H. Cooley

  Charz grabbed the shaft of the spear and yanked it toward him as he thrust his head forward in a mighty headbutt. His rocky forehead caved in the top of its skull, sending it to the water to join its brother.

  Charz shook his head. He hefted the spear and stepped up on the body of the trollkin he had just downed and threw the weapon with all his strength, skewering the chest of another approaching part-human.

  It collapsed, gurgling, its eyes open in shock and Charz frowned. Looking around, he saw that the other troops weren’t having it as easy as he had. Men were falling in the swamp around him. The trollkin were indeed formidable. Just not on his level.

  “Oh well,” he said with a shrug. “I’ll have to make up for quality with quantity.”

  No sooner had the words left his mouth than the trollkin under him shifted. He looked down at the water in time to see its head expand. The part-human’s eyes left its skull on lengthening stalks, its nightmarish jaw widening. He stumbled off of its swelling chest as it rolled to its knees, letting out a horrific screech.

  “Alright,” the giant said, his smile growing just as quickly as the body of his opponent. He had heard tales of the battles against Ewzad Vriil’s twisted monsters in the previous war. He’d missed out on most of it while out with Hilt and Deathclaw fighting trolls. “This is more what I expected to see.”

  The mutated trollkin rose to a height of twelve feet. Teeth and claws were its most defining characteristics. It swayed, confused about its unexpected growth and Charz started punching again. His right hook caught it across the jaw and his left uppercut sent it stumbling backwards.

  Laughing, he walked towards it, only to be caught off-guard when its arms whipped forward with a surprising quickness. Its open hands struck him on either side of his head, a stunning blow to both ears. Then its forehead came down, crunching into his and cracking his stony skin.

  Blood streamed down his forehead and Charz smiled. This time he had gotten the kind of fight he had hoped for.

  He was the only one enjoying this aspect of the battle, though. Men all along the line struggled and died against the regular trollkin. When the occasional mutated version appeared, the men were quickly outclassed and those trollkin that were downed usually got back up. Those six thousand no longer seemed like small numbers at all.

  * * *

  “This is madness!” said Stolz emphatically. “If the Grove dies, there will be no world worthy for the trollkin to inhabit. You should know this. Your tree has told you!”

  Xeldryn stood inside the cell with the door open, his Jharro staff held in front of him ready to use if the wizard or his bonded tried anything. Stolz’s argument was not new. The bespectacled trollkin had repeated it every time Xeldryn had come to see him, which had become a daily occurrence, usually in the mornings before the birthing. The king was unsure why he was so continually drawn to the trollkin. He had very specifically refused to think of his memories of the man Stolz had been before the Mother.

  There were many memories that Xeldryn refused to think about. He had learned to keep most of his former life darkened in his mind. It was the only way he had been able to survive. His life was about serving the Mother and leading his people. To think of other things just led to pain.

  “The Mother has made her decision. We must trust in Her,” the king reminded Stolz.

  The bespectacled Trollkin snarled. “This situation is not about the Mother. It is Mellinda. Think. What was life like for our people before that evil woman came?”

  Xeldryn knew where he was going with this. Before Mellinda, the Mother’s desire for growth had been general and directionless. It was the snake woman who had fixated the goddess on this path. “Before she came most of our people, most of the Mother’s births were bad. Now very few are born with deformities and those that are can be fixed.”

  “She manipulates the Mother,” Stolz said. “She turns your own people against you. Don’t forget who she is. She is the Troll Queen of old.”

  “Don’t call her that,” Xeldryn warned.

  Stolz’s jaw tightened and he closed his eyes. “I know things about the Mother and Mellinda. Things that I have tried not to burden you with. But it seems I must. Do you know how the Mother came to be under this swamp?”

  “Say nothing more,” said the king. “I fear blasphemy is about to come from your lips and that I will not abide.”

  Stolz sighed. “Then understand this. Mellinda was once a bonding wizardess. She went to the Dark Prophet to learn how to pervert that power to her own desires. Everywhere she has gone, she has destroyed lives, destroyed kingdoms and peoples, all for her own benefit. She cares nothing for this people. She cares nothing for the Mother. All she cares about is the destruction of the Roo people and the destruction of the Grove. She is using you and she is using the Mother. Why do you not see that as blasphemy?”

  “That is enough for this morning,” Xeldryn said, refusing to hear more. He left the cell, barring its door behind him.

  As he left the cells to climb the stairs to the top of the palace, he couldn’t help but mull Stolz’s words in his mind. He was right about Mellinda and he was right about the way she was using his people.

  Doubts began to creep into his mind. Before Mellinda’s arrival, things had been different. What he had told Stolz was true. Many of the Mother’s births had been disasters. Was that not proof that She was fallible?

  He shook his head. That line of thinking led only to dark places. If the Mother was fallible, then he had been walking blindly. Nevertheless, he had to admit to himself that the evidence was there. The Mother had definitely learned from Mellinda. Whatever Mellinda had taught Her had led to a decrease of defects in Her children. Logic said that a goddess that needed to learn was not omnipotent.

  But did She have to be. Couldn’t She be the goddess of his people and still not be perfect? Could they not love and worship Her knowing that She was just doing the best She could?

  The king laughed at himself. He was thinking like a fool. Perhaps he really should stop seeing Stolz.

  His personal guard waited with Murtha for him in his throne room. He nodded at them and they left to descend the staircase to Solitude. As they went, Rembis came close to the king.

  “I heard word of another monster today,” he said.

  Xeldryn frowned. Another disturbing development. Recently rumors had begun of monsters, trollkin who grew huge and misshapen and attacked their fellow people. But every time he had investigated, there had been only rumors. No proof. “Where did this happen?”

  “In the feeding place,” Rembis replied. “It happened last night. A fight began over a deer carcass. One of the people, it was said to be one with fish scales. I think it was the one that lives next to the Old Hospital.”

  Murtha frowned. “Pegerly? The one that spends his days fixing bridges?”

  “I do not know his name,” said Rembis. “But he suddenly grew twice as tall and fins grew from his back. They say he tore another trollkin in half.”

  Murtha gasped. “Who?”

  The ram-horned trollkin shrugged helplessly. “It was not said. But when I got there a person told me that the monster and the dead person were taken away by the snake woman’s followers. My king, we cannot let this stand.”

  Xeldryn stopped on the stairs and turned to face his guard. “I know how you feel. All of you. Mellinda is overstepping her bounds.”

  “She took Djeri,” Murtha reminded him.

  “She murders whoever she likes,” said Rembis.

  “We do not have proof of any of these things,” the king said though the words sounded hollow in his mouth. “But even if true, we can do nothing about them now. The Mother has spoken. Mellinda is the general of our armies in this war. If we are to act it must be after this is over.”

  “After the Grove is destroyed?” said one of the guards, but he lowered his eyes upon meeting Xeldryn’s glare.

  “King,” said Murtha, pointing at something behind him.

 
Xeldryn turned to see the First waiting at the bottom of the stairs. That was strange. The First rarely came this close to the palace steps. Xeldryn hurried down to him. “What is it, First?”

  “She has begun without you,” the First replied.

  Mellinda had refused to come to the birthings for weeks and now she starts without him? His tone was accusatory. “Why would you call the womb for her?”

  The First gave him an apologetic shrug. “Long ago you told me to obey her commands.”

  Xeldryn winced. “That was before . . . No more. You call the Mother for me only.”

  “Yes, King,” said the First. He opened his mouth as if to say more, but hesitated.

  “What?” Xeldryn pressed.

  The First looked down. “When we spoke on the shore of the lake that night . . . I said we could do nothing but delay.”

  “Yes,” said the king regretfully.

  The First licked his human-like lips. “I may have been wrong.”

  “It is too late for us to realize that, don’t you think?” the king said. Scowling, he moved past the First and jogged down the path, his anger building at every step.

  When he arrived in Solitude, the banks were a hive of activity. All of Mellinda’s hand-picked cullers were there, hard at work sorting the newborns. Mellinda inspected each one quickly, stopping only to heal the most grievous of deformities. He noticed that the vast majority of them were being sorted as soldiers.

  “Mellinda!” he yelled.

  She glanced back at him. “Sorry we had to begin without you. There is a busy day ahead. The Mother has a large number of newborns ready and I must also speak with my commanders about the next wave of forces to leave KhanzaRoo.”

  He did not like the casual way she said that. “If you want to begin early you must send for me first! I must be here for each birthing. It is my duty as king!”

  Mellinda didn’t even glance at him this time. “I’ll try to do that next time.”

  He fumed. This was her way of showing her power over him. Many of her servants were wearing smirks. Why did she bother? She was already in control.

  Xeldryn’s hand clenched on the haft of his staff. Once more there was nothing he could do about it. The Mother had spoken, hadn’t She? The words he had spoken to his guards earlier now sounded even more hollow than before. He had told them that they would attend to Mellinda after the war was over. Would his people have any respect left for him after that?

  At the very least, he would not let these newborns go by without knowing who he was. He walked through the ranks of those slated for the army, reaching out to touch each one as he passed. To his relief, each and every one of them recognized him as their king. At least the Mother had not forsaken him. His confidence grew with each trollkin he touched, but then he heard a striking voice.

  “My king!” a female newborn said, in gratitude for his presence.

  He paused, his hand on her shoulder, and looked her over. She was tall, powerfully built with a wild head of shaggy brown hair. Her skin was a greenish brown, her shoulders and arms covered with the thick skin of a swamp croc. His talent told him that she had slightly accelerated healing but would not regenerate.

  Her lips were full and broad, her smile showing a straight set of pointed teeth. Her cheekbones were high and proud and her eyes . . . Familiar eyes. Brown eyes. Often stern. Often kind. Always there when he needed wisdom . . .

  Memories flooded through his mind unbidden, unwanted, but unstoppable. She had been there for him on his first day at the Grove. She had been there on his wedding day, on the day he became one of the Protector’s Elite Force. She had been there when Lindra had died. She had cradled the body of his stillborn son and cried with him at the funeral. His shoulders shook.

  The first word that came to mind he would not say. Could not. What came out was, “Herlda?”

  She cocked her head. “Yes, that is my name. Thank you for knowing it, my king.”

  He stared at her and his stomach lurched. He had not known she had been swallowed. When had it happened? On the day of the treaty signing? Of course Xedrion would have brought her with him. Why not?

  The wrongness of the situation struck him. Anger filled him. But it wasn’t anger at the Mother. How could he be angry at his goddess? It was the injustice of what would happen next. Would she soon be one of his people who decried him behind his back?

  He could separate Herlda from the group, send her to be one of his personal guards. Yes. He would do that. But what then? Would she continue to respect him as time went on? What of when her memories returned? What would she think of her son who sat back and did nothing when the Troll Queen of old returned to destroy the Grove?

  “Herlda, you are in the wrong line,” he told her and pulled her away from the army ranks.

  He called to Murtha and directed the dwarf to take this newborn to join his guards. Then he walked to the First and placed a hand on his shoulder, giving him a very specific chemical message. The First turned wide eyes on him and Xeldryn nodded.

  The king walked to the water’s edge and called out, “Mellinda! I would speak to you!”

  Once again she did not glance over at him, busy fixing the arm of a disfigured newborn. “In a moment.”

  “Now!” he commanded. She turned a glare on him. He forced the anger out of his voice. “As your king, I . . . request your presence. It will take but a moment of your time.”

  Mellinda sighed. “Very well.”

  She made one more small adjustment to the newborn in front of her and approached him, moving away from the mound of the Mother’s womb. She passed the First without so much as a glance. Did not notice him bend down and dip his long-fingered hand into the water.

  Now that her servants could not see her face Mellinda gave the king an apologetic look, and with a quiet voice said, “I understand you’re upset. I really am just doing the Mother’s will.”

  He nodded. “I understand. But I would ask that you do so without showing disrespect to my position among this people. You lead our armies. But I . . .”

  He turned slightly away, looking towards the sorted newborns. Her gaze followed his, not noticing as the Mother’s mouth opened in the water behind her.

  Xeldryn spun back towards her, his staff turning into a blade as he sliced it diagonally across her torso. Her flesh parted from her left shoulder down to her hip. Her insides gaped from the massive wound and her eyes bulged.

  “You fool,” she said in shock.

  “I am the Troll King!” he said and kicked her backwards into the Mother’s open maw. Just before the jaws slammed shut, he thought he saw a flash of orange right next to her beating heart.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  “We’re dead!” Arcon said with a tittering laugh, the sound of his voice a mixture of horror and relief. He could feel everything, the Mother’s hot flesh surrounding his body, Mellinda using his hands to try and hold in his spilling guts.

  We are not! Mellinda howled mentally, smartly keeping her mouth shut as their body was pulled further into the Mother. A stomach formed in the flesh that surrounded them. Hot liquid soon began to fill the space around them.

  Mellinda had already turned the powers of the rings inward and was trying to heal the damage done by the Troll King’s unexpected attack. The wound was devastating indeed, but nothing Stardeon’s powers could not fix.

  The Mother is on my side in this! Mellinda promised Arcon. Once she realizes who I am she won’t digest us. I’ll heal us up and then we will get out of here and then the king will die slowl-!

  Her thoughts disappeared from Arcon’s mind as the orange eye floated away from the gaping wound in his chest. The powerful mix of digestive juices in the stomach that had formed around them attacked the eye, dissolving it quickly. Just before his own vision clouded over, Arcon saw Mellinda’s spirit essence captured by black strands of spirit magic and taken away.

  “Peace!” Arcon shouted, though doing so only filled his mouth with fluid. All he knew w
as that in his dying moments he was finally in control of his body once more.

  That thrill of freedom was short-lived. Mellinda was gone and he knew that he soon would be too but until then, there was only pain and horror as the rings rebuilt and tried to repair his flesh, struggling to heal his body as fast as the Mother digested it.

  He soon realized that, whichever power won, it would not be a swift process.

  * * *

  As the Mother’s mouth sank back into the still waters of the lake, the King turned to the gasping group of cullers. “There! Mellinda’s lust for power doomed her to this fate!”

  “You killed her,” said Felberon in shock. The huge part-human with the ears and tail of a dog trembled, grief and rage passing over him in equal amounts.

  “I gave her to the Mother!” Xeldryn said. He looked imploringly to Mellinda’s servants and cullers, a handful of whom looked relieved, while the others looked aghast. “The snake woman was trying to manipulate the Mother. She was turning our people against each other. Hurting us.”

  “She saved us,” said one trollkin.

  “She healed me!” said another. “Who will heal us now?”

  The king raised his staff, still dripping with her blood, into the air. “She will return to us! You know this. In a few weeks the Mother will birth her again and she will be one of us this time. Do you see? She will still have her power and she will heal us only now she will be faithful to the Mother.”

  “You mean she’ll be faithful to you!” shouted Welven. The trollkin with the feathered back and shoulders was one of Mellinda’s most fanatical supporters. “That’s all you care about!”

  The king’s guards sensed disaster in the air and came to him, standing between him and the others. They drew their Jharro weapons, which further destabilized the situation.

  Xeldryn snarled. “Of all my people you here should know what kind of person she really was. She has done horrible things! Kidnapped many of us. Murdered others. Has she truly blinded you so much that you cannot see? Now the Mother will remake her and she can be a good thing for our people.”