“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.
Chapter Fourteen: Bug Hunt
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.
He felt the pain the moment his bare rump set down.
Immediately, his mind went reeling to a summer he’d spent at Debden campsite as an eight-year-old. He and some other kids had been having a water fight in their briefs using the site’s only open air ammo source, a pair of rusty taps in a concrete sink. He’d been filling his water pistol when one of the bigger kids shouldered by him, sending him—next to naked—into a clump of stinging nettles. The pain he felt that day was something else, but this… this was a hundred times worse. It was as though battery acid had been poured onto his skin, stripping it down layer by layer, etching its way through fat, muscle and bone. It was the purest agony Clive had ever known. “Help me!” he screamed. “God, help me!”
Galanthre sprang into action. “Goblin weed,” she said, studying the bush Clive had fallen prey to.
“What do we do?” Terry spluttered.
“We need a doc leaf,” said Galanthre, scanning the local flora. “Over there, hand me some of that plant by the tree.”
“You mean the stuff that looks exactly like the weed he just sat in?” asked Terry.
“Just give it here,” ordered Galanthre, sternly.
Terry saw Clive thrashing about in agony and decided to throw caution to the wind. Dashing over to the weed, he reached down and yanked a fistful from the earth. Surprisingly, the plant left his hand unharmed, so he carried it to the elf and stuffed it in her paw. Galanthre applied it to Clive’s rear like a mother nursing a baby’s nappy rash.
Almost immediately Clive’s scalding torment was replaced by a sense of abject humiliation. Tears in his eyes, he pushed Galanthre away and tugged up his trousers. “Get off me!” he demanded.
Eathon arrived to see what all the noise was about. “Is everything alright?”
“We’re fine,” said Nat, then noticed one of Eathon’s tapered ears twitch. The elf turned his head back the way they came and his features tightened. “What is it?” Nat asked.
“Do you hear that?” Eathon asked his sister, who’d turned to face the same way. Galanthre pressed her palm to the ground to feel for vibrations.
Nat strained her ears, but whatever it was they were sensing was well beyond her range. She watched the elves draw their swords and did likewise, freeing Cleaver from his scabbard.
“What’s the score, boss?” asked the blade. “We about to tap some claret?”
“I don’t know,” Nat replied.
Ashley arrived at the stream, alerted by the sense of impending danger. “What’s up?” he inquired, weapon at the ready.
“We don’t know, they won’t tell us,” replied Terry, exasperated.
“Hush,” hissed Galanthre. “They’re almost upon us.”
The unicorns stamped their hooves anxiously and moved out of striking distance.
Nat aimed herself in the same direction as elves, who’d turned to face a patch of dense undergrowth that concealed whatever it was they were preparing to do battle with. She could hear movement too now. Footfalls, forceful and heavy.
“I count three men,” said Eathon, adopting a fighting stance.
“That’s greezy, man,” Ashley protested. “How did them trolls get up on us so fast?”
“They didn’t,” said Galanthre, taking a gulp. “That isn’t three men. That’s six legs.”
A single, giant pincer sheared through the undergrowth, closely followed by Stinger, who leapt through the air and bore down on Eathon like a guillotine. The elf just about managed to propel himself backwards to avoid the attack, his metal feet kicking up clods of dirt as he scrabbled away, his face bone white.
Ashley entered the fray, charging Stinger with his sword raised over his head like a particularly enthusiastic executioner.
“Careful,” shouted Galanthe, but Ashley barrelled ahead, only to take a blow to the skull that sent him face-first into the mud and rendered him insensible.
Galanthre let out a war cry, whirling her sword in wild figure-eights, her blade ringing off the scorpion’s shell like a chorus of tolling bells. Stinger fought back like a demon. Even missing a pincer, he made for a formidable enemy. As Galanthre pressed her attack, trees were felled by the creature’s claw and great ruts carved into the earth by his skittering hooves.
Clive ducked and weaved in an effort to stay clear, but somehow found himself sucked into the maelstrom. As the scorpion whirled about his stinger stabbed at Clive, its razor-sharp point angled for his jugular. The former Game Master squeezed his eyes shut, certain he wouldn’t be opening them again, but miraculously the needle of the stinger stopped an inch from his throat, deflected by thin air. In all the strife and confusion the others didn’t pick up on this bizarre turn of events, but Clive understood at once how he’d managed to defy the reaper. His suspicions had been piqued back when he buried that dagger in a tree stump. He’d almost dismissed the oddity as a product of his imagination—a side effect of being off his meds—but this was proof. Proof that he was special. Proof that he had powers. While the others had honed their weapon skills and hoarded enchanted artifacts, he’d become able to manifest his will in the form of magic. Using nothing more than his mind, he’d conjured an invisible, flat plane that had saved his life. He was getting stronger. He was shedding his chrysalis. He was levelling up.
Conscious of none of this, Terry rushed to his friend’s aid, loosing an arrow at the scorpion. He aimed for the only sensitive area he could find: its eyes. The shot came close to finding its target but ricocheted off the creature’s husk, and while it didn’t do any damage, it certainly got Stinger’s attention. The scorpion returned the favour by slashing Terry across the head with his pincer, landing a cut just above his hairline. Terry gasped as a curtain of blood came gushing down his face, hot and red. While Terry was blinded, Stinger reached out, snatched him up and dragged him into his kill zone. Terry felt the scorpion’s mandibles tickling his bloody face right before the creature made ready to scissor him in half—
—at which point Nat arrived, bringing Cleaver to bear on the scorpion’s pincer with a leonine roar.
“Gertcha, cowson!” hollered Cleaver, but even his enchanted edge was no match for the creature’s bony carapace.
Instead of biting into meat, Cleaver bounced from the scorpion’s armou
r, sending a shock down Nat’s arm so painful that she only just managed to keep a grip on him. Thankfully, it was enough to cause Stinger to lose his grip, which allowed Terry to slither to the floor, where Galanthre pulled him clear of danger.
The battle between Nat and Stinger raged on, bringing her to the brink of exhaustion without evincing even the faintest sign of fatigue from the scorpion. Her fellow fighters were all otherwise disposed, and try as she might, she couldn’t find the slightest chink in the scorpion’s armour. It was only a matter of time before she fell foul of Stinger’s murderous claw. She needed to come up with a plan—fast—because the frontal attack she was employing wasn’t scoring her any points. Then a thought occurred. As she watched the scorpion scuttle from side-to-side her mind went back to Epping Forest. Back to when she’d played the role of a scorpion, or at least the back end of one. How was she only now making that connection? She remembered the encounter and how Terry and the rest had gotten the better of her: by manoeuvring themselves to the scorpion’s rear where it had no means to defend itself.
That was it!
“Someone keep it busy,” she shouted.
Galanthre recognised Nat’s strategy and began bashing her sword against a nearby tree, making no small amount of noise. Immediately the scorpion lumbered about to face her, revealing his hindquarters to Nat. She raised her magic blade, all ready to finish the monster off, when a blur appeared in her periphery. Suddenly Eathon was there, bounding into the air as if from a trampoline and landing atop Stinger’s back.
“This is for Gilon,” he cried, and used both hands to plunge his sword through the monster’s eye.
The giant scorpion collapsed, twitched some, then died.
DRENSILA SMASHED A fist into her scrying pool, banishing the obnoxious image of an elf burying his sword in her beloved pet’s skull.
“I’ll run a spike through their behinds and stack them like a totem pole,” she screamed, revisiting another hurricane on the chamber as she flipped furniture and slapped items from surfaces. She seethed and raged until she was sufficiently worn out, then she raged some more. “Are you happy, mother?” she cried. “Does this please you, you old crone?”
Drensila yanked the rod of power from her sash and held its orb to her burning eyes. Something was wrong. The crystal was empty. Carnella was gone.
“Over here, dear,” came a voice from behind.
Drensila’s mother emerged from the shadows like a vengeful shade.
Drensila threw up her hands, fingers twitching, lips mouthing an incantation for a bolt of elemental fury.
“There’s no need for that,” sighed Carnella. “I didn’t escape your prison for the sake of revenge. Besides, even if I wanted to hurt you, I couldn’t.” She swiped a hand at Drensila, only for it to pass, ghost-like, through her body.
Drensila ceased her recitation. Carnella remained intangible and tethered in the spirit realm. So long as she remained that way she could do her no harm.
“So tell me, mother, if you don’t want to kill me, what do you want?”
Carnella turned up her palms in supplication. “The only thing I ever wanted. To help.”
Chapter Fifteen: Cocked Die
THE SUN WAS a dying ember, painting the Whispering Woods with long, trailing shadows. Glow bugs danced around the refugees as they sat by a campfire roasting steaming hunks of scorpion meat.
Nat regarded the skewered portion before her and wrinkled her nose. “I guess I’ve had worse things in my mouth.”
Galanthre laughed. It was a sound Nat had scarcely imagined possible. “It tastes wonderful,” said the elf, taking a healthy bite and beaming back that rarest of smiles. “Like victory.”
“Why are we talking about food?” asked Neville. “Tell me what I missed back there, and make the details as gory as possible.”
“Don’t aks me,” huffed Ashley, picking at his scorpion meat with an uncharacteristic lack of relish. “Got myself KO’d, innit?”
Galanthre put an arm around him in a “Next time, champ” kind of way.
Nev looked to Clive for some gossip but the former Game Master just chewed grimly at his food, taciturn as ever. Those around the fire took his silence for bashfulness brought on by his humbling experience with the goblin weed, but Clive’s mind was occupied with other thoughts entirely. Thoughts of sorcery. Thoughts of revenge.
Cleaver, who Nat had propped beside her, filled in the blanks. “It went down like this, son,” he told Neville, “I was having it out with that scorpion—all ready to do him up like a kipper—when Billy Big Bollocks over there pinched my kill.” He flicked his eyes at Eathon, but the elf didn’t pick up on it. He was too busy tuning a teardrop-shaped lute that he’d rescued during the exodus from the village.
“Who cares who did what?” said Nat, diplomatically. “We won, didn’t we?” She did sympathise with Cleaver though. The sword wasn’t the only one put out by the elf sticking his oar in. Eathon avenging his brother did balance the karmic scales though, so a bit of queue-pushing could be forgiven.
Eathon plucked the strings of the lute, singing a song as he played. It was a sad song. A song about a vanishing star, a metaphor for his people and the dying breed they’d become. As she listened, Nat put an arm around her boyfriend. Terry had cleaned up well since the fight. The scalp wound he’d been dealt had turned out to look much worse than it was. “Merely a flesh wound,” as Neville had put it.
Nat continued to listen to Eathon’s song. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she asked Terry, solemnly bobbing her head to the music.
Terry shrunk from her. “Are you serious? You’re getting off on Tom Bombadil over there?”
“I just meant it was a nice song.”
“Are you hearing yourself? He’s the guy at the party who turns off the music so everyone can listen to him strum his poxy guitar. Screw that guy.” He shot to his feet and stormed off into the woods.
“Terry,” Nat shouted, and chased him into a nearby copse. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“What do you think?” he barked. “You’re supposed to be my girlfriend, Nat, but every time I look at you you’re eyeballing snake hips over there.”
“Will you give it a rest, Tel? There’s bigger things at stake here than your male ego.”
Eathon padded into the clearing. Naturally, he didn’t so much a rustle a leaf. “You wandered from the fire,” he said. “Is everything okay?” He was topless still, the strap of his back scabbard carving a flattering line between his taut pecs.
“Oh great,” said Terry. “It’s the elf on the shelf.” He stormed off again, deeper into the forest this time.
“Shall I go after him?” asked Eathon.
“No, let him go,” Nat replied. “He’s still wound up from the fight, that’s all.”
“So long as you’re sure.”
The two of them stood there for a while not knowing what to do. The sun had gone down fully now and the chirp of crickets rendered the lack of conversation almost comical.
“Would you care to join me in my hammock?” the elf asked.
“Pardon me?” replied Nat, taken aback.
“We have to get clear of the ground. Dangerous creatures roam these woods at night.”
“What kind of creatures?”
“Do you hear that sound?”
Nat strained her ears. She could just about make out a faraway drumming noise. “What is that?”
“That is a deathwatcher,” Eathon replied. “They roam the forest floor looking to feed on living flesh. The noise you hear is the sound of its ten cloven hooves drumming the ground like a hungry man’s fingers on a dinner table.”
Nat panicked “What about Terry?” she asked. “What about the unicorns?”
“My people will see to it that your man is taken to safety. As for our steeds, the deathwatcher isn’t known to feed on unicorn meat. The only ones in danger right now are you and I.”
The deathwatcher’s drumming was answered by more drumming as others
joined its call.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Nat blurted. “Take me to your hammock.”
Eathon directed Nat to a tree and showed her to the top. A bed made of knotted vines awaited them.
“Relax,” he told her, and it was hard not to given their surroundings.
It was magical up there under the star-speckled canopy of the night sky, the forest lit by the clean, white face of the moon. Nat sighed. She’d dreamed for so long about getting away from Chipping Ongar, and this was about as far away as it got. “It really is beautiful out here,” she said, basking in the warm night air.
Eathon looked at her quizzically. “You talk as though you’ve never slept beneath the stars before.”
“I haven’t. Not unless you count a couple of wet weekends caravanning at Debden campsite.”
Though the key references of this comment were lost on Eathon, he still managed a raffish smile that shone incandescent under the moonlight. “You haven’t lived,” he joshed.
He stretched out in the hammock to get more comfortable, and as his weight shifted, the centre of the bed sagged and Nat found herself inadvertently rolling his way. She only managed to stop herself ending up face-down on top of him by placing a hand on his chest, which of course was hard as brick. Without necessarily meaning to, Nat breathed the elf in. He smelled like a blend of sandalwood and fried bacon; absolutely goddamn delicious. As she hastily tried to right herself, her other hand found itself on his rippled stomach. Oh my. She’d always told Terry she didn’t go in for gym bods, but the Braille of Eathon’s abs spelled out a powerful argument to the contrary.
“Dear God, give me strength,” Nat prayed, despite being an atheist (excusing the occasional dabble in the Buddhist arts).
Her whole world had been turned upside down. Previous to today, if Nat were asked to draw an elf, she’d have scribbled a picture of a Little Helper. A Christmas pixie toiling away in Santa’s workshop dressed in a pointy hat and stripy tights. Eathon wasn’t that kind of elf at all. Eathon was pure alpha male, effortlessly charismatic and possessed of a physique that looked as though it had been cut from a block of raw sex. “Lord help me,” thought Nat, “but this Little Helper can fill my stocking all year round.”
Trolled: The Complete Saga (The Trolled Saga) Page 13
