by Rinelle Grey
She raised an eyebrow, challenging him. He stared back. His heart beat a little faster. Was she hiding something?
“There are guards in the pass to give warning of a troll attack.”
“Why have guards up there, when you have some here? They can see anyone coming in time to defend the village.”
“No they can’t. It’s going to take a lot more than four men to hold off an attack.” Brianna’s voice was cold and hard. “We need time to get every person able to fight ready, and the gate secured again to protect the children and the elderly who stay inside. Without the warning from the pass, the trolls would have a chance to break down the wall, and we would lose too many people.”
Despite the fact that he still didn’t believe in her trolls, Lyall supressed a shiver at her words. Mages, he reminded himself. Mages could disguise their form and look like anything they wanted.
Except he still couldn’t feel his magic. How could they use magic if there wasn’t any?
Only if they controlled the magic barrier. Maybe it didn’t stop them using magic, only other mages?
That thought was enough to make his skin crawl. “Right,” he said quickly. “Carry on then. Everyone else, back to the village.”
Urster stared at him, but didn’t object. He and the soldiers trailed Lyall and Brianna back to her house.
“Can I have a moment?” Urster said quietly as Brianna opened the door.
“Not now,” Lyall said curtly. The man was getting above himself again. “Wait here.”
He followed Brianna into the hallway. “Your man thinks I’m lying,” Brianna said sourly.
“Probably,” Lyall agreed. “And he thinks I’m too obsessed with you to see through it. But I think I might know what is going on.”
Brianna raised an eyebrow. “You do? What?” She put her hands on her hips.
Lyall hid a smile. “First, I need to check something.”
Brianna frowned, but followed him into the study again. Mianna appeared in the kitchen doorway, her face concerned. “Did you stop them?” she asked anxiously.
“The guys wouldn’t let them past,” Brianna reassured her. “They’re back now.”
Mianna heaved a sigh of relief and disappeared, probably to relay the news to her husband.
Undeterred, Lyall headed into the study and picked up one of the books that still littered the desk. He flipped through it to the page he was after. Death records. He’d barely paid them any attention earlier, just skipped past them, but now he looked more closely.
As he had suspected, they came in clumps—Twenty here, another thirty there—almost never a single one. Something had been happening here in the village, but he didn’t think it was what the villagers believed. He picked up the more recent book, and the pattern was the same. Right up until the date, about two years ago, when Brianna had left. Then there were almost a hundred names, the page blotted with smudges.
He looked up. “This is what happened, the night you left the island?” he asked softly.
Brianna nodded slowly. “It was the biggest attack we’d seen. Usually they only came in small numbers. Five or six. This time, there were twenty of them. They…” her voice broke and she took a deep breath, then continued, “they killed so many people, including my mother.”
“I’m so sorry,” Lyall said gently.
Brianna wiped away a tear. “It was a long time ago. But you have to believe me when I say that they are not to be messed with. Especially not when you can’t use magic within the village. They’d slaughter you.”
“We are quite experienced with a sword too,” Lyall said pointedly. “I doubt it would be as bad as you say.”
Brianna laughed, the sound grating on his ears. “So are we. It’s a rather important skill, don’t you think, when your village gets raided regularly? But they are taller than us by a good half and much stronger.”
“They can’t really be trolls, Brianna,” Lyall said. “It must be the mages, using illusions to pretend they’re trolls.”
She stared at him, considering that idea for a moment. Then shook her head. “Can’t be,” she said, ‘there’s no magic here, remember?”
“If they are the ones who created this magic shield, and I can’t see who else it could be, then it’s entirely possible that they can use their magic inside it.”
Brianna pursed her lips, considering. “No, I don’t think so. Because if they could, wouldn’t they have used it to defeat us? Nothing scares an undefended village more than a few fireballs and dragons, right?”
Lyall winced and gave a low laugh. “True, that strategy is quite effective.” He considered her words more thoroughly. If the mages could use magic, then why wouldn’t they? And if they couldn’t…
“Their bones are different too,” Brianna added, her voice thoughtful. “And if they are using an illusion, they would be the same after they were dead, wouldn’t they? They’d change back into normal people when we killed them.”
“You’ve killed some of them?”
Brianna frowned at his disbelieving tone. “Yes, of course we have,” she said defensively. “Lots of them. They’re all buried over in the field. We refuse to have them in our graveyard.”
“Show me,” Lyall said.
Brianna ate another biscuit and smiled when Urster looked out of the hole he and the other mages were digging and scowled at her. The old man plainly thought she was making it up and didn’t expect to find any bones.
He’d see.
She didn’t think Lyall believed it either, but she was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. It was strange though, that after all the books he had read, he hadn’t heard about the trolls. Or he had, she remembered, but he thought they were a made up story. Well, she might have thought the same if she hadn’t seen for herself.
Her arm twinged, a reminder of the time she’d broken it in her first fight. The hilt of a troll sword, luckily, not the blade, or she would have lost it. She had the scars to prove that the trolls existed.
And the others would find out soon enough.
“Found something,” one of the other men called out, then he disappeared as he bent down into the hole. A moment later, he hefted a dirty white bone into the air.
Lyall got up from the picnic rug Mianna had brought them earlier and went to look. Brianna followed him.
The man hoisted the bone onto the side of the hole and Lyall knelt next to it, turning it over on the soil. “A femur,” he said, his voice tinged with disbelief. And well he might, it was impossibly long and thicker than Brianna’s entire leg.
“I’ve found another one.” Urster, the tone of suspicion gone from his voice, rolled a giant skull next to the femur. “What sort of creature has bones like this?” He shook his head, but fear had replaced his earlier bravado. “How many of them are in here?”
The skull was misshapen, the jaw sticking out, and the head bulging over the ears. Brianna could easily picture it covered in green warty skin. She shuddered. “A few hundred of them, scattered across this field I’d say. We’ve been burying them here for centuries.”
Lyall rocked back on his heels, and stared at the field, but his eyes were unfocused. “I can’t believe they actually exist. How could this not have been mentioned anywhere?”
“It’s mentioned in our records,” Brianna said.
Lyall turned to her. “Actually, no, it’s not. The deaths are recorded, but haven’t you noticed that no one mentions the trolls? Not once.”
He had a point. Brianna stared at him. Why, when they were such a menace to her village? Why did no one talk about them and write down strategies for defeating them? Or even just record the numbers and attacks.
If only her mother hadn’t died, maybe she would have had an answer. She’d expected to be the village leader for many more years, until Brianna and Mianna’s had married and had children. Then she would have taught them all they needed to know. It was a foolish way to do things when life was so dangerous.
Lyall stared i
nto the hole. A few more soldiers added bones to the pile, each one as bizarre as the others. Lyall stood up abruptly. “There’s no point looking for more. I think these bones confirm Brianna’s words. The trolls are real, and they are a dangerous threat. Until we know more, no one is to go outside the wall near the ridge. Urster, make sure everyone knows.”
Urster nodded immediately. Brianna suspected he was just glad to get out of the hole. “Should we set a guard, sir?”
“We’ve found that increasing the numbers at the pass just leads to more trolls coming through,” Brianna said quietly. “Put extra men in the village if you want, but keep them back from the ridge.”
Lyall nodded. “Do as she said,” he ordered and Urster didn’t even object. He just headed quietly back to the wall.
It was almost enough to unsettle Brianna. But she was used to the threat of the trolls. No point in being afraid now.
Lyall ordered his men to fill in the hole and clean up the bones and bring them to him. Then he walked back to the house with Brianna. “Why do they attack?” he asked on the way.
Brianna shrugged. “They steal stuff. Food, tools, I guess they can’t make enough of their own. They don’t talk, just sort of grunt, so I haven’t been able to ask them.”
Lyall gave a short laugh. “Right. But is that all? They just take food and leave? They don’t try to get past you to the rest of the countryside?”
She frowned, considering. Then the image came to her, the one from her dream.
“They always just stole stuff, then left. Until the last attack,” she said softly. “That day, they headed straight to the graveyard. They took something from one of the graves, but I don’t know what it was.”
Lyall stared at her. “They took something from a grave? That seems a bit… random.”
Brianna nodded. “It’s an old one, a crypt more than a grave. It must have been someone important I guess, maybe the town leader at the time. The inscriptions were worn away a long time ago.”
“Show me,” Lyall commanded.
Brianna bristled at his tone. But now that he had brought the topic up, she wanted to see as much as he did, so she let it slide.
“Come on,” she said, and hurried through the village to the graveyard on the other side.
Lyall paused when he saw the size of it, and Brianna could imagine what he was thinking. But she wove her way quietly through the headstones, careful not to tread on any, to the one she was after in the middle.
The white stone structure stood out amongst all the smaller monuments. With its peaked roof, it looked almost like a house, with white columns all around. Once there had been pictures on each panel, but only flecks of paint remained, enough to know there had been colour, but not to tell what they had depicted. One panel had been replaced with ordinary stone after it had been broken by the trolls.
Lyall walked around the structure, staring at each side intently. Already having done this herself two years ago, Brianna didn’t bother to follow him. Instead, she took the chance to watch him unnoticed.
He moved differently. He was more aware of every step, more sure, yet holding himself rigid, as though afraid to let down his guard. He had cut his hair short, in a more severe style, and there were lines on his face she didn’t remember being there.
“So whose grave is this?” Lyall’s question interrupted her thoughts.
Brianna winced at how loud his voice was in the silence, but the custom of not speaking applied only to funerals. “Keep your voice down.” Then she shrugged. “I have no idea, it doesn’t say.”
Lyall glanced around, and when he spoke, his voice was as low as hers. “Yet this is where the trolls headed? And they took something from inside? Did you see them?”
Brianna hesitated. “I wasn’t here.”
“So did someone else see them?”
Could she trust the visions she had seen in her dream? Well, the smashed panel should be proof of that. “No one here saw it, they were too busy defending the village and those who were still living. But the smashed panel on the grave was proof enough.”
Lyall frowned. “Then how do you know they took something? Was something missing specifically? And if so, what?”
For some reason, Brianna was strangely reluctant to mention her dream. Was it because she didn’t think he’d believe her, or that she didn’t want to bring up that time, when they’d been so close together?
Lyall looked at her impatiently, waiting for an answer, so she sighed, and told him. “No, we have no idea what is inside. I saw it… in a dream. The one I had right before I left.”
Understanding dawned on his face. “That was why you ran. So it was real.”
“How else could I have known what was happening here?” Brianna said defensively. “Everything else was right, my mother’s death, Mianna killing a troll, the crypt being broken into. Why not that something was taken?”
Lyall heaved a sigh. “And since you didn’t know what was in there, there is no other way to confirm it. Was there anything left that might give us a clue?”
“I don’t know, we didn’t go inside,” Brianna said. “We don’t desecrate graves.”
“You didn’t even look? After the trolls had been inside, I hardly think your presence could have been worse.”
“Look, we had other things to worry about. There were wounded to tend to, buildings to rebuild, newly dead to bury and orphaned children to find homes for. Excuse me for not carefully checking a grave for mysterious objects.” She glared at him.
Lyall’s expression softened. “I’m sorry, Brianna. It must have been awful for you.”
“For everyone here,” Brianna corrected. “Yes, it was.”
Lyall respected her silence for a few moments, as she remembered that day, and the weeks after. To feel guilty, again, that she hadn’t been here.
She was almost glad when his words interrupted her thoughts. “We need to check inside now. Maybe there is a clue as to what they were looking for her. Obviously they know something about this grave that we don’t.”
“You can’t break into the crypt!” In her agitation, Brianna forgot to speak quietly
“Brianna, many of your own people died here, defending this grave. Don’t you think you owe it to them to find out why? Don’t you want to know? Maybe there is a way to stop these troll attacks and for your village to be safe. Isn’t that what you want?”
Brianna stared at him. “Stop the troll attacks?” she repeated stupidly. The thought seemed impossible. But if he was right, and they weren’t just random attacks, but they were instead working with some purpose… “Do you really think they’re intelligent enough to be after something specific?”
“I don’t know, I’ve never seen one. What do you think?”
Brianna considered his words. Were the trolls just mindless killing machines, or could they have some greater purpose? They had never seemed interested in anything except killing and stealing, except… She remembered the troll she’d seen the day before she’d left. Going over Ethean’s body, taking his book. “Maybe,” she admitted.
She looked at the crypt. Something in there could hold the key to why the trolls were attacking, and maybe why they hadn’t attacked since that night. She owed it to her family and friends to find out. “We can look inside. But let’s keep it quiet. I don’t need everyone to know.”
Lyall nodded and walked to the edge of the graveyard and called to some of his men who were patrolling the edge of the village. “Bring some tools and come and help me. We need to break some stone.”
They didn’t ask questions, just disappeared to do his bidding. What was it like, to have people who just obeyed you without question? Even though Brianna and her twin were accepted as the leaders of their village, there was still no way anyone would listen to them without voicing suggestions, adding ideas and even outright arguing with them. And she wouldn’t change that, even if she could. The older villagers had information and wisdom she and Mianna sometimes lacked.
I
n a few minutes, the men were back with pickaxes. As soon as they began to swing them at the replacement panel, Brianna realised how impossible it would be to keep this a secret. In minutes, the sound of steel on stone echoing through the village had brought quite a crowd. And they were all incensed.
“What does he think he’s doing, destroying our crypt? He’s no better than the trolls,” Rasell called out.
“You should stop him, Brianna,” his wife added.
More voices added to the first two, until Brianna could barely distinguish the words, especially over the sound of the picks.
She turned to walk across to explain to them, but Lyall beat her to it. “No one is going to stop me from investigating this crypt. Return to your homes. There is nothing to see here.”
Brianna hid a grin at the outraged expressions on the villager’s faces, and hurried across to where they stood, before they yelled at Lyall. “Please, I know this isn’t pleasant, but L… Prince Balen has a reason for his actions. The trolls broke into this grave, and we need to know why.”
“Because they’re trolls and like to destroy everything in their path? What more reason do you need?” Corlin said stubbornly.
“Perhaps,” Brianna agreed. “But what if there’s another reason? That last battle was different from all the others, and we need to know why.”
Corlin eyed Lyall sideways. “What does he care? He’s just like them, wanting to take over our village.”
Brianna glanced at Lyall, but he seemed unmoved by the villager’s words, then back at Corlin as he added, “And why are you siding with him?”
She winced. To the villagers, her presence here and agreement with Lyall’s actions looked like a betrayal. And to some extent, maybe it was. But if Lyall could work out why the trolls attacked, and maybe stop them, the whole village would benefit. But how could she get them to understand that?
The truth was, she couldn’t. Not without telling them a whole heap of things she’d rather not divulge. And even then, it was doubtful they would believe her. “I’m not siding with anyone,” she said flatly.
