“Face down with your arms out,” Skullcap demanded through the caveman jut of his jaw.
Reluctantly, Thrungle made himself into a cross, palms flat on the ground, eyes in the mud. Moments passed. Moments that felt like hours. Then—
—SHANG!
Blind as he was, Thrungle didn’t see the warlord’s meat-cleaver come down. He felt it though. Felt it sunder his arm from his torso in one fell swoop. Felt hard steel against the ruins of his shoulder, shocking and cold.
“Up,” said Skullcap.
Thrungle staggered to his feet, eyes fixed on the floor, tar-black spores leaking from his whistle-clean wound. Skullcap regarded Thrungle’s severed appendage, which flopped on the ground like a wet salmon. He snatched it up, gripping it tight until it stopped thrashing, then held it to the ragged ruin of his own shoulder. Immediately, root tendrils emerged from his body and connected to the severed arm, knitting the two together until they were one. Smiling, Skullcap made a fist with his new hand and showed it to his disobedient inferior. “Thank you,” he said.
Despite their haste, the elves retreated soundlessly through the Whispering Woods. They moved unhindered through thick brush and dense undergrowth, scarcely leaving a footprint. They might as well have not bothered. The humans tromped flat-footedly after them, trampling every shrub and snapping every dry twig in their path.
“Would you care to leave any more of a trail?” Galanthre hissed at Clive.
“You think this is my fault?” he retaliated. “I wanted to leave before the village got razed to the ground. You’re the idiots who wanted to listen to The One.” He pressed on under his breath. “More like The One Idiot.”
Cleaver spoke up in his wielder's defence. “Mouth off like that again and you and me are gonna ‘ave a falling out.”
“Oh, do shut up,” spat Clive.
“I hope you came heavy, son, ‘cos I ain’t going back in that scabbard now till I’ve tasted blood.”
Terry expected Nat to break up the pissing match, but instead she stared straight ahead, shell shocked. “Don’t listen to Clive,” he told her between puffs and pants. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
The remorse Nat felt was written all over her face. She wore her shame like a scarlet letter. “No, he’s right,” she said. “This is all my fault.”
Now it was Eathon’s turn to jump in. “Do not mourn for those who sacrificed themselves in battle,” he told her. “They died dancing. They gave their lives that we might live.”
Since Neville no longer had his wheelchair he was forced to cling to Galanthre’s back as she ploughed through the woods. It was as humiliating as it was depressing. “Can we focus on the matter at hand? We won’t survive in the open without magic to camouflage us, so we need to come up with a plan.”
Ashley, who was managing to keep a good stride, agreed. “We need fam, innit?” he said. “Ain’t you lot got peoples?”
Galanthre laughed. “The only people within a hundred miles of here are the dwarves, and I hesitate to call them people.”
“What’s your beef with dwarves?” asked Ashley, then decided he didn’t need to know. Elves always had a beef with dwarves, it’s just the way things were.
“If the dwarves are the only other folk around here we’d better make friends with them,” remarked Terry. “Fast.”
Having put some distance between themselves and their attackers, the runaways settled into a brisk walk.
“Even if we wanted the dwarves’ help it would be impossible,” said Eathon. “They live in a place called Bludoch Dungeon, far beneath the earth.”
“They haven’t come up for air in centuries,” said Galanthre, “and the passage to their city is guarded by all manner of traps and monsters.”
“That settles it then,” said Clive. “This is real life, not a tabletop adventure. I mean, why would anyone go walking into a dungeon willingly? Dungeons are places people try to get out of.”
It was a fair point but it did nothing to solve their predicament.
“Way I see it,” said Ashley, “the dwarves and us had better get tight. Unless one of yous has a better idea?”
The pregnant pause ran to its third trimester.
“Finding allies is the least of our concerns,” said Eathon. “Right now we have to figure out a way to outrun the trolls. There are hundreds of them on our tail, and unlike us, they don’t require rest. No matter which way we head we’ll never outmatch them in a foot-race.”
“What about if we took those?” said Nat, who’d been quiet for so long that the others had almost forgotten about her.
She gestured to a nearby meadow of tall, yellow grass. Wild horses frolicked there. Dozens upon dozens of horses. Horses with conspicuous horns on their foreheads.
“Oh my God,” gasped Nat. “Are those unicorns?”
*****
A RAVEN FLUTTERED through the ruined window of Drensila the Black’s minaret and set down on the footboard of her bed. She untied a capsule attached to the bird’s leg, cracked open its wax seal and scanned the message within. It was a report written in Skullcap’s hand. It told how the siege of the elven village had faced certain setbacks, unseen difficulties that had resulted in the onslaught being decidedly less genocidal than anticipated. Drensila screwed the parchment into a tight ball and hurled it from the window.
“Unseen difficulties!” she cried.
“You need to keep a closer eye on what’s going on out there,” suggested her ever-vigilant mother, offering advice from her astral prison.
Drensila squinted at Carnella’s face in the crystal orb of her rod. “And how am I supposed to do that? The device I used to visit the elves is lost to me and I don’t have the materials to make another so soon. Ravens are as best as I can do.”
“Not so,” implored her mother in a soothing tone. “There are other ways, child. Magical ways I would have taught you long ago had you not quarantined me in this plane of shadows.”
“Don’t get any ideas, mother. The moment I’m finished with the interlopers I’ll see to it that you serve the rest of your time in that dismal purgatory in perfect silence.”
She paced up and down the chamber in an attempt to formulate a plan but eventually succumbed to curiosity. “Very well, mother, tell me. Tell me how to put eyes upon my enemies.”
A smile formed at the corners of Carnella’s mouth. “There are many ways,” she replied, “but simplest of all is to consult the bones.”
“Which bones?”
“Go to the drawer of my bedside dresser,” replied Carnella, then caught her daughter’s scowl. “Your bedside dresser,” she corrected.
Drensila did as requested and slid open the drawer.
“Remove the panel from the bottom and you’ll find a hidden compartment,” Carnella went on.
Drensila emptied the drawer of its contents—a satin eye mask, a book of forbidden poetry, a crystal vial containing venom antidote—and located a heretofore unnoticed tab. Hooking a fingernail beneath it, she was able to lift out a slim panel and reveal an oxblood red leather pouch hidden in the recess. She untied its drawstring and tipped a collection of rune-etched finger bones into her palm.
“Very nice,” she said. “And which unfortunate did these belong to?”
“Nobody special,” replied Carnella. “Just your father.”
Drensila tossed the bones back into the drawer and wiped her hands furiously on the bedspread. “You’re a class act, mother,” she spat.
Carnella sighed. “If I’d only known you were so sensitive, my dear. Thankfully there is another way. One that I hope won’t offend your delicate sensibilities.”
“Tell me,” snarled Drensila.
“It’s simple. The first thing you must do is take that silver bowl there and fill it with water from the ewer.”
Drensila did as instructed, filling the bowl to its brim. “Now what?”
“Roll up the sleeve of your gown.”
Making sure to roll her eyes firs
t, Drensila unbuttoned the sleeve and folded it to her elbow. “What next?”
“Just one last thing,” Carnella replied. “Take a knife and let some blood from your wrist.”
“Nice try,” snorted Drensila. “I’m sure you’d love me to open up a vein and bleed to death for your amusement.”
“You wound me, child,” said Carnella, seeming genuinely slighted. “All that’s required is a drop or two. The merest donation into the water and the second sight shall be yours.”
Drensila certainly didn’t trust her mother, but what harm could it do to follow along? So long as the knife were in her own hand, no misfortune would befall her. She activated a secret button on the rod of power and a stiletto blade ejected from its pommel. She carefully drew the blade across the outside of her forearm and the slice leaked three drops of blood, which plopped rhythmically into the water below. Instantly, the liquid became opaque and a picture appeared there. Upon the shimmering surface of the water, Drensila saw the image of the Whispering Woods, and a within it, a band of absconding refugees. The elves—along with those troublesome interlopers—had procured steeds and were heading west at a gallop. At first Drensila was enraged, at least until she realised the direction they were headed.
“The fools,” she scoffed. “How desperate they must be to take this path. Attempting to find safe haven with the dwarves?”
She turned from the scrying pool wearing a watermelon smile.
“You see?” said her mother, who smiled also. “The old ways are still the best ways.”
*****
THE YELLOW GRASS of the unicorn meadow undulated in the breeze like an ocean of gold. Up above shone a rainbow—an actual, no-fooling rainbow—the kind beloved of leprechauns and gays. As the unicorns cropped intently on the golden pasture the refugees kept to one side, laying on their bellies in the surrounding heather so as not to spook them. Eathon, who’d gone to the trouble of cutting down a length of tree vine, knotted a loop in its end.
“What’s that for?” Nat whispered.
“To secure our transport,” he said, fashioning the vine into a lasso. “If we can capture the biggest of the stallions and break it, the rest of the herd will follow.”
“Are you serious?”
“They won’t come easy, that’s for sure. We don’t have steeds of our own so we can’t round them up. The only way we’ll even get close to them is to use the utmost stealth and cunn—”
Before he could finish his sentence, Nat had stood up and gone wandering into the clearing, bold as brass.
“Where is she going?” hissed Eathon.
“She knows what she’s doing,” Terry replied. “I hope.”
Nat pushed on through the meadow, parting stalks of golden grass as she carved a path towards the largest of the unicorns. The rest of the herd became skittish, their heads surging above the barley to eyeball the intruder. Nat held her hands in the air as if in surrender as she passed them by, continuing her path to the prize stallion. The giant unicorn reared up and let out a whinny. For a moment it looked as though he were about to turn and bolt, but curiosity held him. Nat was mere feet from him now, close enough to appreciate the animal in his full glory. He truly was breath-taking. Simply the most beautiful creature she’d ever laid eyes upon. Nat had seen horses back in Essex, even ridden a few, but none of them held a candle to this magnificent beast. His golden pelt was so bright under the midday sun that it was hard to look at directly, and his glassy, spiralled horn shone like a prism, as pure and uncontaminated as his perfect spirit. Nat arrived at the unicorn’s head and stopped just at the sharp of his horn. The beast snorted, his breath hot on her cheek, and she made gentle shushing noises to calm him. For a moment the two simply regarded one another, Nat peering into his big violet eyes looking for a rapport, and the unicorn peering back into her very soul. Eventually, after some indeterminable amount of time, the stallion lowered his head and Nat placed the palm of her hand on his muzzle.
“Good boy,” she whispered.
Chapter Seven: Bug Hunt
HITCHING A RIDE on a thundering unicorn really had done wonders for Nat Lawler’s mood.
“Hounded by a horde of bloodthirsty monsters?”
No worries, riding a unicorn.
“Conscripted your friends into a war they wanted no part of?”
No problem, riding a unicorn.
“Picked a fight with the queen of evil and gambled with the lives of a fragile civilisation?”
Unicorn, bitch!
The mighty buck’s hooves pounded steady against the earth, his mane flowing like warm streaks of honey, his horn straight and true. Nat supposed she should have felt scared—riding a wild animal bareback with no means to steer it—but the unicorn moved with an enduring smoothness that put her completely at ease. Instead of treating her like an unwanted stowaway to be bucked into the dirt, the animal held her afloat like a swell of gentle waves lapping at the shore.
Nat had taken to the animal immediately, so much so that using the term “animal” to describe him felt lacking somehow. Derogatory even. The moment her well-cushioned posterior had settled onto his spine, they’d become so much more than rider and beast. They’d become a union. Nat had made a silent promise to ride no other, and in turn, the unicorn surrendered himself as her faithful steed. The two were connected now. Siamese souls. Nat had even given her four-legged counterpart a name, Goldie, on account of his glittering, caramel-coloured pelt. It wasn’t a particularly inspired choice of name she realised, but one could over-think these things.
Goldie hadn’t come to Nat alone, he’d brought the rest of the unicorn herd along for the ride too. Nat cast a glance over her shoulder and watched them nipping at Goldie’s undulating tail, keeping a steady pace despite many being forced to carry tandem riders. Nat didn’t like to see the steeds overburdened, but having a surplus of survivors was a dilemma she could live with. Certainly there could have been a good deal fewer passengers to transport, but miraculously the attack they’d endured had claimed less than a couple of dozen villagers.
Clive was enjoying the unicorn experience a good deal less than Nat. While she and her steed powered along like poetry in motion, the only way he could stay aboard his rented mule was to wrap his arms around the waist of the elven rider at its reigns. It was an act of physical contact that made him feel helpless and squeamish. He wasn’t one for touching. No one in his family was. He and his mum had stayed at arm’s length even after she was diagnosed with cancer, so he could certainly live without cuddling a total stranger.
Sat on a unicorn beside Clive, was Terry. Unlike his friend, Terry didn’t mind riding bitch, in fact, he was having a whale of a time, grinning and singing the theme to Black Beauty. “I am loving this!” he screamed over the roar of the hoofbeats. “Except for the incredible pain in my balls anyway.” He marvelled at his girlfriend, racing along up front like she was born to it. “Look how happy she is,” he shouted to Clive, a gormless look on his face.
“Yeah, good for her,” he yelled back, choking on Nat’s dust. “Never mind the pile of dead bodies we just left behind, your girlfriend gets to play horsies with Rainbow Dash.”
Eathon pulled up alongside Clive and Terry. He rode his stallion effortlessly, his metal feet spurring the beast on to a gallop. “Isn’t she magnificent?” he said, also admiring Terry’s girlfriend. “I’ve never known a unicorn volunteer itself like that. To think she tamed the biggest among them with a mere pat on his muzzle.” His eyes went misty. “She truly is The One.”
“Yeah, she’s a real gift from the gods,” said Clive, pouring on so much sarcasm it’s a wonder no one drowned in the stuff.
Terry gave the elf nothing by way of reply. Nothing save for a toxic dose of side-eye.
*****
SKULLCAP STEPPED OVER his saddle, placed a foot in a stirrup and dismounted his scorpion steed. He held up a fist and the signal echoed back through the ranks, bringing the remaining army of three-hundred trolls to a halt. He stooped to e
xamine the ground. The footprints they were pursuing had come to an end, replaced by the deep, oval ruts of unshod hooves. As he considered his options a waterboy arrived to offer him a skin of drink. The warlord drained it dry, wiped his mouth and slapped the depleted container back into the gopher’s hand. As the waterboy slunk back to the ranks, Skullcap climbed to his feet, returned to his mount and untacked him. He put a hand on Stinger’s head and stroked the thick bristles jutting from his carapace.
“Bring me the head of the red-headed girl,” he whispered, and sent the scorpion on his way with a slap on the hindquarters.
Skullcap watched Stinger disappear into the distance then gave the signal to advance. The trolls resumed their march.
*****
NAT STOOD WATCHING the sky as Goldie and the rest of the unicorn herd drank from a roadside stream.
“What are you looking for?” asked Terry.
“Nothing,” she replied, but she knew he could see right through her. “Dragons,” she admitted. “I’m looking for dragons.”
“Really?” said Terry, chuckling.
“We just spent the last hour riding unicorns. I don’t think dragons are too much of a stretch.”
“Unicorns are basically horses with extra horns. Giant flying lizards that breathe fire? That’s bonkers.”
“He’s right,” agreed Galanthre. “Dragons are the stuff of myth.”
“Told you,” said Clive, who couldn’t resist sticking his oar in. Then, quite without ceremony, he pulled down his trousers and began to urinate in the stream.
“Oi!” screamed Nat, pointing to the herd. “They’re drinking from that.”
“Who cares? They’re just dumb animals.” He said it without looking her in the eye, a habit of his that only served to make his words all the more annoying.
Despite Nat’s protests, Clive continued to aim a steady flow into the stream, further contaminating its crystal clear water. He would have emptied his bladder completely were it not for a grass snake that slithered unexpectedly from the bulrushes and reared up with a hiss. The shock made Clive lurch backwards, and combined with his state of undress, caused him to topple into a nearby bush.
Trolled (The Trolled Saga Book 1) Page 12
