The Troll King (The Bowl of Souls Book 9)

by Trevor H. Cooley

  “Which is why this gnome warlord’s plan is so ingenious,” Edge said. He glanced back at Tarah. “You said that he plans to control the Stranger. How does he hope to accomplish this?”

  “I don’t know,” Tarah replied with a shrug. “I can only see what someone’s thinking at the moment they leave a track and a clear track is hard to find when they’re in the middle of an army. It’s double hard with Aloysius, ‘cause he’s on horseback most of the day. I’ve been tracking him for weeks and all I get are snippets of his thoughts. Most of what I’ve learned comes from the demons and they don’t know much. Mostly they fantasize about torturing the Stranger.”

  The named warrior scratched his head. “I suppose this means we should go and try to rescue him.”

  “I don’t wanna go there,” Cletus pleaded, his lips spread wide in a grimace.

  “The gnome’s right. Rescue the Stranger?” Djeri scoffed. “We should be applauding them. Let them beat the turds out of him for all I care. Maybe he’ll learn a lesson.”

  “I think you two are missing something,” said Willum. “We’re talking about one of the prophets. With that kind of power, he doesn’t need our help.”

  “Yeah! Let’s don’t do it,” Cletus agreed.

  “His powers have been taken away,” said Sir Edge. “The Prophet told him so. He’s vulnerable.” He sighed. “I think we should try. I was taken to the Stranger’s house for a reason. Maybe this is it.”

  None of our business, said Rolf’s voice again and Tarah spoke up. “I think the point is moot by now.”

  “What do you mean?” Jhonate asked.

  “Whatever was going to happen happened last night,” Tarah said. “That was their plan last I heard. I could check again. All I need are some tracks.”

  “So it is over. He has either been captured already or he has escaped,” said Qurl, looking relieved that he didn’t need to get involved. “We should be getting back to Roo-Tan’lan. My father will decide if something needs to be done for this Stranger.”

  “Qurl is correct,” said Jhonate to Sir Edge. “But perhaps we should let the Woodblade woman check some of this army’s tracks first. I wouldn’t mind seeing them myself.”

  “My name is Tarah,” Tarah said. There was something about this Jhonate that rubbed her wrong. “Everyone knows I’m a woman.”

  “Alright, Jhonate. We should . . .” Sir Edge’s eyes went suddenly distant. “We need to continue this conversation later. Deathclaw is under attack by a group of trolls.”

  “Where is he?” Jhonate asked in surprise.

  He closed his eyes and pointed to the east. “A few miles away.”

  “Trolls this far from the swamps?” Qurl asked in surprise. “How many?”

  “More than a dozen,” Edge replied. “He is acting like it’s not important, but their numbers are increasing. I need to go and help him out.”

  “Let us go, then,” said Jhonate.

  “I’ll come with you,” Willum said. “My axe needs some energy and troll blood should do the trick.”

  “Alright. Fine,” Edge replied and Willum ran over to Alfred, climbing onto the warhorse’s saddle.

  Gwyrtha padded up to the named warrior and presenting her flank, eager to get going. To Tarah’s surprise, the rogue horse grew in size, swelling until she was twice her previous size. Jhonate leapt up onto her back, sitting just behind the saddle, waiting for Sir Edge to join her.

  He hesitated and turned towards Tarah and Djeri. “You two should stay here and pack up your camp. We’ll be back to take you to Roo-Tan’lan. Oh, and Jerry . . .”

  The named warrior bent to whisper something into the dwarf’s ear. Then he mounted his rogue horse and bolted out of the camp, Willum galloping at his heels.

  Qurl frowned after them, irritated that he hadn’t been invited. He signaled to two of his men, who approached him. “You two stay here with our guests until the rest of us return.” He nodded to Tarah and waved his arm, then he and the rest of the Roo-Tan warriors ran off in the direction Sir Edge had gone.

  Tarah looked at Djeri and smiled. “Well, I think that went well.”

  The dwarf was wearing a scowl. He motioned to the two Roo-Tan men that had stayed behind. “Why don’t you two put that fire out? We’ll get our things together.” Then he gripped Tarah’s arm and pulled her over to where Neddy stood. The mule was watching them with his highly intelligent eyes and Tarah wondered how much of their conversation he had understood.

  “You know what Edge told me before he left?” Djeri asked, his voice an intense whisper and his human-like green eyes wide. “You want to know what he just whispered in my ear?”

  “That your armor was too shiny?” Suggested Grampa Rolf, appearing next to a nearby tree. Making sarcastic remarks about Djeri was another of Esmine’s favorite things to do. The rogue horse didn’t like the fact that he was immune to her magic. Tarah was also suspicious that Esmine was jealous of how close she was to the dwarf.

  “What did he say?” Tarah asked.

  Djeri struggled to keep his voice down. “He said, ‘Have your girlfriend get some clothes on while we’re gone’.”

  “Ooh. I had a feeling he might have figured it out,” said Grampa Rolf with a chuckle. He had taken a piece of wood and a knife out of his pocket and was whittling.

  “He saw me?” Tarah’s cheeks colored. She had been so involved in the conversation with the others that she had almost forgotten she was naked under the illusion. “He hid it well. I didn’t even notice him check out . . . things.”

  “He couldn’t see through the illusion himself, but his rogue horse told him,” Djeri said.

  “Oh,” she said. “I thought I’d gotten away with it.

  “You thought you’d gotten a- . . .” The dwarf’s mouth worked as he tried to think of what to say next.

  Cletus chose that moment to appear. His arms were full of Tarah’s clothes and armor. “Here’s your stuff, pretty Tarah,” said the gnome. “Put it on so you won’t be blurry anymore, okay?”

  Tarah let out a sigh of relief and took the clothes from him. “Thanks, Cletus.”

  She glanced over at their Roo-Tan babysitters to see if they were watching, knowing it would confuse them to see her putting clothes on over her other clothes. The two men were busily burying the fire, but were keeping an eye on what she and Djeri were doing, so she ducked behind Neddy to dress.

  The dwarf followed her, finally getting his jaw under control. “Just what the hell was that all about? Turds, woman! Willum and I come bringing in new possible allies to fight against the gnome and you step out naked as a plucked hen!”

  “Oh, is that how my body looked?” she said, pulling her linen undershirt over her head. “Well you’ll be lucky if I ever let you ever see it again.”

  Cletus groaned and put his hands over his ears. “No arguing!”

  “Don’t you try to turn this on me, Tarah,” Djeri said, ignoring the gnome. “You know I like how you look. It’s been distracting me this whole time. What I don’t like is this crazy behavior! What if even one of them was able to see through the illusion? How much credibility are you going to have if word gets out Tarah Woodblade likes to walk around greeting people cheeks to the wind?”

  Tarah scowled at him. She was well aware of the situation she had been in. “I didn’t do it as a stunt, ya frog brain! I was coming back from the river when you all showed up. I had no way to get to my clothes without brushing by someone. What was I supposed to do, hide behind a tree and call out for someone to bring my stuff? Would that have been a great first impression?”

  The dwarf placed a weary hand on his forehead and said calmly, “Then you should have told Esmine to create a distraction and turn you invisible so that you could sneak in and grab your armor.”

  Tarah’s scowl deepened as she pulled up her pants. Oh how she wanted to come up with a good reason to throw that suggestion back in his face. Instead, she found herself saying, “I thought about just that thing, but Esmine suggest
ed the alternate plan and I . . . went with her suggestion. Don’t look at me like that! It was a split-second decision.”

  “Stop listening to her so much!” Djeri snapped. “She’s an animal, for turd’s sake. The only reason she can speak to you is because she learned how by rooting around in your brain. Her decision making is like that of a . . . ten-year-old.”

  “Ten year old! I’m 850 years older than he is!” Rolf said, his jaw screwed up in anger as he stalked over to the dwarf. He lifted his completed wood carving, a depiction of Djeri, and snapped it in two. “Tarah, hit him with your staff for me.”

  Stop it, Esmine. “She survived for over a thousand years on her own,” Tarah said to the dwarf. “Her instincts are good.”

  “Are they now?” Djeri scoffed. “Then tell me something. What kind of coon hunt did she just send Sir Edge on?”

  “I had nothing to do with that,” said Grampa Rolf, folding his arms. “That dragon creature is just out of my range.”

  “Huh.” A few miles away was ‘just out of her range’? That was new information. It was kind of frightening, even. The rogue horse was still learning the full depth of her power. Tarah shook her head. “It wasn’t Esmine. There must really be trolls over there.”

  Chapter Four

  “Illusions!” Deathclaw seethed as he clung to the trunk of a magnolia tree, high above the troll horde below. Twenty three of the creatures were standing around the base of the tree, soundlessly reaching towards him, their toothy maws agape. The palm of his hand itched from the scar left by the pommel of his sword. Star had awakened and was eager to kill. Yet the trolls weren’t his biggest concern.

  “Illusions!” he hissed again.

  Deathclaw was a creature with finely tuned senses. It was something he prided himself in; something he depended on. It was those senses that made him so efficient in battle. The fact that someone had been able to fool those senses irked him to no end.

  He went over the experience again in his mind. He had travelled ahead of Justan and the rest of group, intending to spy out this Woodblade woman and her companions and determine how much of a threat they were. He had seen the tracks of a horse, a heavy one, perhaps a warhorse like the academy forces liked to use and another horse, somewhat smaller, perhaps a mule.

  There had been traces of a scent mingling with the horses, that of a human woman and oiled leather. Those scents could have come from any Roo-Tan woman, but since horses weren’t in common use among the people of Malaroo, it was likely he had found his quarry. But the horse tracks had soon disappeared. Deathclaw had doubled back, but could no longer find the tracks he had followed. Only the woman’s scent had continued on.

  That was when Justan had told him what he was dealing with: Illusions. The woman’s staff contained the soul of a rogue horse that had the power to confound his senses. Deathclaw had not been able to abide that thought. No matter how powerful its magic was, could a rogue horse be clever enough to trick his senses? Surely that was impossible.

  He had redoubled his efforts, trying to follow the trail while focusing on his senses, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Then he had found it; a discordance; his vision telling him something that his sense of smell disagreed with. Deathclaw smelled water, as if a river was nearby, but his eyes showed him an open clearing of grass. Which one of his senses was incorrect? Or were they both wrong?

  Just then, a breeze had blown across his skin, carrying with it a cool note. There was a shift in the humidity that confirmed to him that water was nearby. Deathclaw crept across the clearing, heading in the direction his skin said the river would be.

  Suddenly, the illusions had disappeared. Disoriented, he had found himself standing not ten feet from the banks of a narrow, slow moving river. That was the moment when Tarah Woodblade had appeared to Justan and the others at the camp. Deathclaw realized that he had gone quite off course. Justan was over two miles away.

  Hissing in anger, Deathclaw had dived into his memories of the illusions, trying to sort out his senses once more, doing his best to determine how they had betrayed him and vowing not to let it happen again. He was so preoccupied that he had allowed a group of trolls to sneak up on him. Too engrossed in his thoughts to bother battling such a minor threat, he had climbed a tree.

  More trolls had slinked up the riverbank to join the others. Their numbers had increased until the chemical scent of their slime began disrupting his memories. Deathclaw paused in his thoughts to hiss at them and something occurred to him. His reptilian eyes narrowed. Sneaking trolls?

  He tore his mind away from its analysis of the illusions and focused on his current situation. Trolls don’t sneak. They are mindless beasts that plod about aimlessly until they sense food. Then they screech and run for their prey. The silence of this troll horde was uncharacteristic.

  The palm of his sword hand itched even more and Deathclaw looked down to see that the tiny star-shaped scar was glowing a dull red. The fine scales around the scar sizzled. Star was more than eager. The sword had finally awakened. It hadn’t been this eager for use for months. Not since it had destroyed that troll behemoth on the outskirts of the Tinny Woods.

  Star’s power normally changed with the time of day. Its blade caused burning wounds, its heat strongest at night when the stars were bright and weakest at mid-day. However, it always burned hot for trolls. Star loved killing trolls more than anything. Deathclaw figured it had something to do with the soul bound to the weapon, but try as he might, it wouldn’t speak to him.

  We are coming, said Justan through the bond and Deathclaw got the sense that he and Gwyrtha were heading in a straight line towards him. Gwyrtha was in her larger form and was being hampered by the thick nature of the Malaroo forest. How did you get so far away from us?

  There was no sense hiding the truth from Justan. The witch’s staff disrupted me, he admitted ruefully. It will not happen again.

  His eyes moved back down to the glowing scar. It itched but did not hurt. He reached towards it with the forefinger of his other hand and felt the heat rising from it. He wondered if he could set a troll on fire by simply touching them with his hand. But fighting trolls with fire in such a confined space would be foolhardy.

  Not yet, Star, he thought. The being inside the blade did not respond mentally, but seemed all the more eager.

  Deathclaw shifted his position on the branch in order to get a better look at the trolls below. Their beady eyes were wild, their jaws opening and closing with hungry soundless rage. Deathclaw cocked his head. “Peculiar.”

  The trolls froze and Deathclaw heard the labored breathing of another creature approaching. Deathclaw craned his neck but could not see it, the tree’s thick leaves in the way. Then the ranks of the trolls slowly parted to allow the newcomer into their midst.

  It was unlike any troll Deathclaw had ever seen. It was half a head shorter than the others and the upper half of its torso was covered in a slimy mat of red hair. It looked up at him with trollish eyes, but it had a human nose. Then it opened its mouth and let out a hungry hiss.

  The troll-thing’s mouth was a deformed gash that opened diagonally across its face as if its jaw were unhinged on one side. Its teeth were square nubs and its tongue was short and pink. The trolls around it opened up their mouths and hissed along with it.

  Deathclaw resisted the urge to jump down and face the thing. He thought back to the strange creatures that Xedrion’s men had found when he and Justan had first met the Protector. They hadn’t shared the same deformities, but they had also been a mix of troll and other beasts.

  He reached through the bond and sent Justan an image of what he was looking at. Justan, one of these creatures is wrong. The other trolls seem to see it as a leader.

  Justan’s reply was quick. I was wondering if we would see more of those things. Switch to mage sight. See if the Rings of Stardeon are involved.

  The rings had disappeared at the end of the war, cut from the hands of the dying Ewzad Vriil. All the Mage School’
s searches had proved fruitless. One prevailing theory was that they had somehow been stolen by the renegade mage Arcon. He had been seen at Ewzad’s side during the war, but had also gone missing.

  Deathclaw did as Justan asked, reaching inside his mind to that place between his eyes where his sight was controlled. His vision shifted and he saw the star-shaped scar on his palm flare a fiery red. The troll thing, however, merely dimmed in coloration, the inherent earth magic in the bodies of all trolls the only thing he saw different.

  “Nothing,” he said aloud and through the bond. Creatures that had been changed by the Rings of Stardeon glowed with a violent mix of elemental magic. Deathclaw’s own skin rippled with the rippling strands of magic that infused his every cell.

  Strange, Justan replied. Well, I suppose we should be relieved. Things would be even worse if the rings had ended up in Malaroo.