The warlord looked down at her, distracted by his ailment, but given a degree of focus by the unexpected flea bite he’d been dealt. He knocked Nat’s sword from her hand with a flick of his wrist. Though he was weakened by whatever it was he was suffering from, the human still didn’t stand a chance against him. He dropped a knee onto her chest and Nat felt the shattered bones of her ribcage head off in separate directions. The pain was horrific. Skullcap closed both hands around her throat. She looked about for help but found none. It was just him and her now.
“Time to die,” Skullcap growled, and tightened his grip. He should have been able to snap her neck like a twig, a creature his size, but whatever was going on in his gut had handicapped him significantly.
Nat’s eyes bulged from their sockets. The tendons on her neck stood up like ropes. Time seemed to slow down. Motes of dust hung in the air like distant, frozen constellations, until finally, blackness began to consume her.
Just then, Nat saw something dangling. The clasp holding the warlord’s golden cape together at the neck. The horn from her dead unicorn. With her last breath of air, she snatched it from the pelt, aimed the pointed end at the troll’s face and pushed it forward with the heel of her palm.
This was for Goldie.
This was for Elderwood.
This was for every elf, human and dwarf that had lost their lives in this pointless war.
The spiral horn entered Skullcap’s eye socket and slid in right to the base. The troll’s eye filled with tar and a black tear rolled down his cheek, dark as a hole in space. He gurgled, keeled on top of her, then twitched his last.
Nat wriggled out from under the warlord’s stinking corpse and yelled in triumph. She’d done it. She’d won the day, and she’d done it without the need of a magic sword. She wasn’t some tourist who’d taken a wrong turn into a place she didn’t belong—a ditzy bit of skirt leading her friends to death’s door—she was a conqueror. A valkyrie. Terry was right; she was stronger than she knew.
Terry.
Where was Terry?
Terry was nowhere to be seen.
Nat blacked out.
Chapter Twenty-Three: Time Out
DRENSILA STOOD AT the window of her minaret, which had finally been reglazed since her would-be assassin used it for an escape hatch. She’d been looking out of that window on and off for the better part of three days, desperate to hear word of her soldiers’ victory. No word had come. She remained utterly in the dark, as she had ever since that verminous human used his magic to pollute the waters of her scrying pool.
Drensila turned the stolen telecommunications device over in her hand; the one she’d claimed from the troublesome interlopers. She was beginning to hate the sight of the thing. What use was it having the knowledge of trans-dimensional armaments if she couldn’t squash one petty insurrection?
Outside, Drensila spied the flapping V shape of a bird headed towards the citadel. Could it be? She unlatched the window and a raven flew inside to set down on the footboard of her bed. It had finally arrived, a dispatch from the front line. Fingers twitching, Drensila untied a capsule attached to the messenger’s scrawny leg. She noticed—with some trepidation—that it didn’t bear the proper wax seal. Nonetheless, she cracked it open and scanned the message within. Her face fell almost instantly.
“Well, what does it say?” asked Carnella.
“It’s from the girl,” Drensila replied. “It seems she defeated my trolls and stole one of my ravens from their belongings.”
“What’s the message?”
“She says she’s coming here.”
“What for?”
“For tea and biscuits, what do you think?” Drensila screeched. “She’s coming to make reprisals.”
She scrunched the slip of paper into a tight ball and turned to her mother. “That girl has thoroughly outworn her welcome.”
She launched the paper ball from her minaret window and sent it spiralling into the chasm below.
THRUNGLE HAD BEEN busy. While his fellow men were busy getting their heads lopped off he’d taken his leave, but not before taking care of a couple of loose ends.
The first was to put Skullcap out of commission.
Robbing him of his arm was an insult that would not go unanswered, and Thrungle had answered it the only way he knew how: underhand and at a distance. He’d had the idea of poisoning the warlord ever since he’d been demoted to his waterboy, but the means to put the plan into practice only presented itself when he came across a gland of deadly venom, found by a burned-out campfire in a pile of scorpion offal.
The second loose end concerned his exit strategy.
Though he’d been confident he could avoid an untimely end by slipping away in the heat of battle, he was less confident of receiving a hero’s welcome when he arrived back at the Citadel of Durkon. After all, the solitary deserter from a lost skirmish was unlikely to be rewarded with an honour parade. Not unless he returned bearing something of extreme value. Something Drensila could use to turn the tide of war in her favour. Certainly that would change his fortune considerably. Instead of being regarded as a traitor, he’d be the lone survivor of a tragic massacre. A survivor who not only fought bravely for his beloved queen, but even took the trouble to bring home a souvenir.
That souvenir was Terry.
Thrungle had managed to snatch him during the chaos. He’d caught the archer taking potshots, knocked him out with the butt of his dirk and slung him over his shoulder like a bale of hay. This prisoner of his, encouraged just so, would provide Drensila with all the secrets she needed to defeat the rebellion once and for all. With this pink, flabby token, Thrungle would buy his way back into the citadel and win Drensila’s favour. Perhaps even earn himself another promotion and assume the vacant post of warlord. These were exciting times. Most exciting.
Thrungle whispered in Terry’s ear. “Change is on the wind, my friend.”
As if by way of reply, a breeze blew through the troll’s macabre collection of necklaces, making the purloined teeth chatter ominously.
“Change is on the wind.”
END OF BOOK ONE
BOOK TWO: POWERPLAYING
Chapter One: Saving Throw
Three Days Ago
Myre’s Quag
CLIVE SNYDER FELT the marching step of the approaching army as it tremored the bridge beneath his feet. The trolls brought with them a cacophony; a din of drums and pipes that stung the ears like hell's karaoke. The end was coming. Soon the monsters marching across the swamp would have him in their sights, and there would be no outrunning them. He was going to die. Die a shabby little death in a miserable, foreign land.
And yet still he had options, limited as they were. His end was a foregone conclusion, but he could at least choose the manner of his demise. Given the chance, the looming trolls would make a tormented plaything of him, but he needn’t give them the satisfaction.
What if he let the swamp take him instead?
Surely that had to be a better way to go than being hacked to pieces and cannibalised? No pain. No horror. Just a slow sink into the slough. Swallowed by darkness. The world turned black and quiet.
Clive hoisted the burlap sack he was carrying over his shoulder and clambered aboard the bridge’s balustrade. He teetered on the precipice, swaying to and fro, willing himself to take the plunge, then—
“—I wouldn’t do that if I were you, sunshine.”
The voice came from inside the sack. It was Cleaver, the talking sword he’d swiped from his former companions.
“Why not?” Clive asked. “It’s got to be better than what they’ll do to me.”
“Not likely,” the sword replied though the burlap. “Swamp’s full of razor leeches for one thing. Once those buggers latch on there’s no getting rid of them. I’ve heard stories of men—hard men—hacking off their own legs just to end the pain.” He sucked some air through his metal teeth. “Of course, that’s if you’re lucky...”
“What if I’m unlucky?”
Clive broke a sweat. “What do they do?”
“Nasty little buggers. Burrow through your eyeball and lay their eggs in your brain pan, they do. Takes six months for them to hatch and kill you, but it’ll feel like a lifetime.”
Clive’s lily-white skin turned a shade lighter still.
“Look, do yourself a favour,” Cleaver went on, “chuck me in the swamp and hand yourself over to the trolls. Rile ‘em up and they’ll do you in quick.”
Clive thought on it, but not for long. Whatever happened to him in that swamp—suffocation, leeches, worms—at least he’d be the one who put himself there. He might die a waterlogged corpse with invertebrates tunnelling into his brain, but at least he’d be the engineer of his own destruction. That had to count for something. Didn’t it?
Clive caught sight of the approaching trolls. It was now or never. He tied the sack containing Cleaver to his belt, closed his eyes and allowed himself to topple over the side of the bridge.
SPLASH.
A haze of flies shot from the surface of the fetid water. Clive hit the swamp face-first and chugged down a great belt of brackish water. It tasted absolutely foul, like rotten eggs with a top note of burnt cat’s piss. Instead of sinking as intended, Clive broke the surface immediately, hacking and spitting, desperate to clear his lungs of the rancid muck. It was a reflex action. If he carried on fighting the inevitable he was going to alert the incoming horde and suffer at their hands. Refusing to allow that to happen, he clasped his arms to his side and forced himself to sink.
Cleaver’s weight acted as an anchor, dragging Clive down into the mire, deeper and deeper. Foreign objects brushed his skin as he sank, and he struck out to keep them at bay. He only stopped when he realised they weren’t predators he was floundering at, but harmless stems of bamboo growing from the swamp bed.
Clive sank to the bottom of the mire and felt his feet dip into sludge. The sediment buried him up to his shins. It was done. All he had to do now was let go. He opened his mouth and prepared to let death in.
Then a thought, hot and sharp.
Bamboo.
If he were able to break off a piece, he could use it as a breathing tube: a snorkel to survive beneath the swamp until the troll army passed by.
He grabbed a length in both hands and tried to break a piece off, but it was too tough. He tried to tug it from the swamp bed, but it was rooted too deep. Panic overcame him. Every ounce of exertion he’d spent had only succeeded in bringing him closer to suffocation. There was only one thing left to do, and he knew from experience that he was going to suffer for it. A lot.
The only way Clive getting his snorkel was by using a blade.
Cleaver.
Unknotting the sack tied to his belt, he gingerly reached inside. His hand froze. The last time he’d tried picking the sword up it had scorched the fingerprints from him. The only way he’d been able to steal it was by using magical means. He’d used a spell of levitation to get Cleaver in the sack. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a stunt he was able to repeat. Whatever reserves he held for spell-casting were well and truly tapped by this point. To slice through the bamboo, Clive would need to wield Cleaver by hand.
Gritting his teeth, he thrust his paw into the bottom of the sack and closed his fingers around the weapon’s hilt. The pain, when it hit him—for it was so intense it took a moment for his brain to accept—almost knocked him out cold. He screamed, but the sound was transformed into mute bubbles. Every fibre of Clive’s being begged him to let go of the sword, but he fought them all. He worked quickly, using the agony as fuel, hacking through the bamboo in three frantic chops. With that done, he went to drop the sword back into its sack, but though his fingers loosened their grip, his palm remained welded to the weapon’s white-hot hilt. He tried to pull the weapon free using his other hand, but the sword burned that too. After much thrashing it came free, but only with a good portion of Clive’s skin attached.
Cleaver sank into the swamp bed and disappeared beneath the mud and grit. Clive grabbed the sliced-off length of bamboo with his scorched hands and put its hollow end to his mouth. With the amount of pain he was in, it’s a wonder he didn’t pipe a scream through the tube and announce himself to the passing trolls in a single, piercing note. Instead he sucked down air. Precious, life-giving air, sweet as nectar. He drank it down until his lungs were full and his breathing had settled into a steady rhythm. A calm descended upon him. Though his stricken hands continued to throb, he needed only wait until the army had passed by, then climb back onto the bridge and be on his way. He’d earned his reprieve. He was going to survive.
Just then, something swam by his eyeline: a snake-like shape, propelled by quick flicks of its tail. As Clive eyed it through the murk, the shape changed course suddenly and darted in his direction.
A bog worm.
Before Clive could react, the creature shot for his face and found its target, burrowing into the soft jelly of his eyeball like an earthworm through fresh soil.
It was a new kind of pain. A pain with no end and no limit.
The creature was on its way to Clive’s brain when he whipped out a hand and snatched it by the hindquarters. He managed to catch the worm just in time to stop it making its way through to the other side and depositing its parasitic load in his grey matter. Half-blinded, Clive tore the worm through the mush of his ruined orbit and crushed the creature in his hand until it was nothing more than ooze between his fingers.
The effort expelled the last of the oxygen from Clive’s lungs. Unable to stay below any longer, he used his final dregs to wrench his feet from the suck of the swamp bed and thrash his way to the surface. He broke the porridge skin of the mire with a great, greedy gasp and hooked his fingers onto the bridge. Hauling himself out of the muck, he immediately found himself face to face with—
Nothing.
The trolls were gone.
Passed by and marching on Bludoch Dungeon to fight their doomed battle.
Clive wilted to the deck. The time he’d spent hiding at the bottom of the swamp had saved his life, but it had changed him too. He’d emerged a changed man, as if christened in some unholy baptism.
Frothing like a rabid dog, he rolled onto his knees, and with scorched fingertips, felt the gruesome hollow where his eye used to be. It was ragged and bloody and agonising to the touch. He wanted to cry but he couldn’t. This world had made a monster of him. A horror, hard of heart and brimming with spite. A creature as foul on the inside as without.
Very well, he thought.
He would be all of those things.
All of those things and more.
With a magic black as pitch, Clive dredged the enchanted sword from the bed of the swamp and planted it by his side.
One Day Ago
Bludoch Dungeon
IF NAT LAWLER were a racehorse, she’d have been shot.
The Battle of Bludoch Dungeon had cost her five broken ribs, a shattered cheekbone and a set of swellings on her throat so vicious she looked as though she was wearing a green and purple choker.
She’d spent the last two days confined to a hospital bed convalescing, her body smothered with lumps, her mind roiling with fitful dreams. When she finally drifted back to the land of the living, the first thing she did was ask after Terry. Having discovered he’d been kidnapped by a rogue troll, she discharged herself from the care of her physician at once. The dwarf protested, insisting Nat recuperate, but she was having none of it. After all, Nat knew better. She was a physician from a world of modern medicine (well, a trainee physician), while he was a medieval quack working with lard-soaked poultices and jars of leeches. Still, Nat soon learned that the dwarf’s advice was right on the money. Though her mind was certainly willing, her body was a broken thing. The moment she made to leave, her knees buckled and she blacked out on the infirmary floor.
When Nat came to, she found Galanthre sat by her bedside, her platinum mohawk scraped over and tu
cked behind one ear.
“Please,” Nat croaked. It hurt to talk, as if she’d swallowed a handful of throwing stars and washed them down with Dettol. “You’ve got to help me find Terry.”
Galanthre tucked in Nat’s covers, cocooning her tight. “Stay down, girl,” the elf insisted. “You have to heal.”
“I have to go.”
It was bad enough losing Cleaver, but losing Terry was unthinkable. Terry was her boyfriend. Her one, true love. She saw that now, and she’d do anything to get him back.
“You don’t understand—” Nat started.
“—Yes I do,” Galanthre cut in. She pulled down the shoulder of her blouse to show Nat an old scar. “This is the wound that would have killed me if you hadn’t saved my life. Let me help you now. If you go running off in the state you’re in, you’ll die. Wait for your injuries to heal, then we go rescue the princess.”
Nat laughed despite herself. It was touching to see how much Galanthre had thawed since they first met. “Okay,” Nat replied, sitting up in her bed. “But as soon as my ribs are set, we’re marching on Drensila’s castle.”
“You have my word,” said Galanthre, and handed her a goblet of water.
Nat let a sip roll over her cracked lips. “Did I miss anything while I was out?”
“Nothing much.”
“The trolls?”
“All dead.”
Nat swore under her breath. She might have learned a thing or two about Drensila’s defences if there was anyone left to question.
“We did find something of use though,” said Galanthre, as if reading Nat’s mind. “Something among their supplies.”
She held up a metal cage. Inside it was a messenger raven.
Nat returned a smile. “I’ll need a pen.”
Presently
The Citadel of Durkon
DRENSILA THE BLACK screwed Nat Lawler’s declaration of war into a tight ball and sent the scrunched parchment spiralling from her minaret window.
Trolled: The Complete Saga (The Trolled Saga) Page 20
