The Troll King (The Bowl of Souls Book 9)

by Trevor H. Cooley

  After the first disastrous day when four ogres were killed and five more had to be shocked clean, it was evident that the Thunder People needed more than just magical help. The academy graduates began teaching the ogres to build fortifications. It wasn’t too difficult. The ex-Stone People already knew how to build rock walls. They just needed some direction on where to put them to best help.

  Lyramoor had scouted the lay of the land and knew which paths the evil used to enter the territory. They built barricades and set up choke points. They built burn piles in closer to these locations so that the dead could be disposed of more efficiently.

  The next day’s battle went much smoother. The ogres kept the dead from breaking past the barricades and, with the help of Fist’s tribe, destroyed the evil army quickly. The only people that needed to be shocked were some of the ogres working the burn piles that grew too careless handling the bodies.

  The following day didn’t go as well. The dead swarmed the barricade before the ogres were ready. By the time the Thunder People retook their positions, three more ogres had died. Adjustments were made. The ogre spotters tended to get distracted or fall asleep, so Lyramoor began taking it upon himself to scout out the enemy forces each morning.

  Each morning, the dead came and each day, the journey to the lake was delayed once more. The enemy made adjustments of their own. One morning large thick-skinned spiders charged and knocked the barricades over. Another morning, the dead took a different route, climbing up a steep incline to enter the territory from an unguarded area. Locksher began to wonder just how smart the evil was.

  Luckily, Crag and Charz stepped up. Crag knew how to keep the ogres motivated. He was at the front of the fight each morning and was up boasting of the people’s prowess every night. Charz was in his element. The rock giant stayed at the front lines and took on any of the more dangerous beasts that entered the fray. Every once in a while, he was even able to drag Mog out of the big cave to help. Charz had befriended the netherbeast and even though Mog was lazy, his size and body dissolving saliva made him helpful to the cause.

  Fist grew worried about where the evil had gotten so many bodies. Every day the ogres destroyed hordes of dead, yet every day the evil supplied more. In the beginning, the enemy was limited to goblinoid and trolls and the occasional ogre or giant. Lately, they were seeing more humans and dwarves amongst the regular fodder.

  Another week went by and with the Mage School refusing to budge, Locksher had decided that the journey couldn’t be delayed another day. They had left the defense of the territory in the hands of Charz and Crag and headed out.

  The dark mass of oncoming clouds was proceeded by a chill wind that buffeted the party as they climbed up and down a series of steep trails and short cliffs. Finally, they arrived at the last obstacle. It was the tallest cliff and more of a sheer climb than the first one. There were places where the cliff face bulged outward, making Rufus’ task all the more difficult.

  “I think we should risk the long way around this time,” Lyramoor said, looking up at the foreboding lip of the rock ledge high above.

  Rufus ran to the edge of the shelf and sniffed. “Ooh! Stinks!” There are dead down there, he told Fist

  “Sorry, we can’t,” Fist said. “Rufus smells enemies on the trails. If we are spotted, the evil will know where we are.”

  “We’re not backing down,” Locksher assured him, though his face still looked as pale as before.

  The rogue horse took Fist and Maryanne up first as he had the first time. There were frightening moments where Rufus was climbing the rock face and Fist was hanging with his arms clenched around the rogue horse’s neck and Maryanne’s arms wrapped around Fist’s waist. Water dripped all around them, but the wind was quickly turning the drips to icicles. They reached the top safely, but on the way back down, Rufus took twice as long.

  “It icy,” he warned the men when he reached the bottom.

  The men shuddered. Lyramoor stepped back, his eyes scanning the cliff for a better route than the rogue horse had taken. The elf didn’t like the thought of trusting his life in the hands of another, even as adept a climber as Rufus, but this cliff was intimidating.

  Come on, Rufus, Fist said through the bond. They’re scared. Encourage them.

  Okay, Rufus replied hesitantly. Talking wasn’t his strong suit.

  “Ooh! Uh. Ooh! You not die,” the rogue horse promised in his huffing staccato voice. The men gave each other wary looks. Lyramoor approached the cliff, but Rufus patted the elf’s back, his large hand covering him from shoulders to buttocks. “You ride this time.”

  “Worry not,” Locksher assured the others, forcing a smile. “As before, I will use air to lash us to the beast quite securely.”

  “Yeah, but what if he slips?” Lyramoor asked.

  “That won’t happen,” Qenzic said. He smacked Rufus’s hairy arm. “You’ve never fallen before, have you buddy?”

  “Ooh-ooh, yes. Lots of times,” the rogue horse said, smiling broadly. He noticed what little confidence there was slide off of their faces and added, “Uh, but not today.”

  Lyramoor mounted up first, grasping Rufus’ neck and the others sat behind him. There was plenty of room on the rogue horse’s broad back for their three slender frames, but his width made the seating a bit uncomfortable. Locksher tied them together tightly with spells and up Rufus climbed.

  In the short time they had spent talking, the chill oncoming wind had frozen the cliff face solid. Rufus made his way carefully, adapting to the way the weight of his passengers pulled on his frame. He chipped away at chunks of ice with his thick fingernails when needed and kept steady all up to the point where the cliff face bulged and Rufus’ legs slipped from the rock. He was hanging by his two hands.

  The men gasped, but Rufus was unperturbed. He had climbed this way many times over the centuries and knew what he was doing. Then the rock his right hand was gripping pulled away from the cliff face and he dangled there for a moment, rotating slightly, the weight of the enormous rogue horse and his three passengers dependent on a single fissure in the rock.

  “Piss and pomegranates!” Lyramoor swore.

  Fist and Maryanne could not see them from their vantage point, but they heard the exclamation. Fist felt Rufus’ heart rate increase through the bond. Are you alright?

  Okay, Rufus assured him. With some effort, he was able to reach back up and find a better grip. Two minutes later he had reached the top.

  “Piss and pomegranates?” Maryanne asked with amusement as the shaken riders slid down from the rogue horse’s back.

  Lyramoor shot her a glare. “I was raised by dwarf smugglers. I’ve heard a lot worse.”

  Locksher stumbled and Fist reached out to steady him. “Master Locksher are you-?”

  “I am fine,” the wizard said in a shaky voice. “I kept my eyes closed the entire time. I have absolutely no idea what happened and I don’t want to know, alright?” He frowned and inhaled through his nose deeply. “Do you smell that?”

  “Yes,” said Fist. He hadn’t smelled it when he first arrived at the top, but the wind had whipped around, carrying it over to them. He pointed to the north. “The lake is just over there.”

  They were standing on the flat top of a wide mountain ridge that was covered with a frozen mass of ice and snow. In the center of it was a tall rock mound with a gaping cave in its side. On the far end was a sheer drop off into a deep canyon. The lake was at the bottom.

  Lyramoor ran off to check out the cave while the rest of the party walked north towards the edge. Fist could see a mist rising from the canyon below and the smell worsened as they approached. Above the wind he could hear the faint bussing of flies. When they neared the edge, he motioned them down on all fours and had them peek down upon the lake below.

  “Holy mother of mud,” said Maryanne. “It’s bigger.”

  Much much bigger, thought Rufus, his large head peering down next to Fist’s.

  Fist’s jaw hung open. It wa
s bigger alright. The lake had surged past the previous shoreline and now rose halfway up the bank. The path to the side canyon that he and Maryanne had walked down was now submerged in black sludge. Fist could just see the flat top of the large boulder he had stood upon when facing the dead horde. It looked like a small square island in the black lake of worms.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Locksher said, his brows raised so high Fist thought it should give the man a cramp. “I mean, you described it to me, but . . .”

  “This isn’t like it was when we were there,” Maryanne said. “The thing must’ve . . . I dunno, doubled in volume for the line to rise that high up the slope.”

  “Are you sure?” Locksher said. “In just two weeks?”

  Lyramoor trotted up to join them. “Hey, that cave back there is empty. I don’t know what was living in it, but-but . . . That’s a lot of worms.”

  “That’s not all,” Fist said, pointing at the slope. There were more dead scattered about than before, mostly large shapes, perhaps giants and ogres, but other things as well. It was hard to make out from this height. They were laying all about the banks in jumbled heaps. But the thing that drew his attention most was about half way up the slope.

  There, seemingly growing out of the side of the cliff was a square building with a sloping roof. A chimney rose from one corner of it and a large stone covered the entrance. Smoke wafted up from the chimney.

  “That building was not there before,” Fist said.

  Nope, Squirrel agreed from his perch atop Fist’s head.

  “Nope,” said Rufus.

  “You think someone built that in two weeks?” Maryanne asked. “Carved it out of the cliff or something?”

  “No. That was created with earth magic,” said Locksher. “Look at it with your mage sight.”

  Fist did so and saw that the entire building glowed black as if imbued with earth. “That wasn’t there before,” he repeated.

  “Hey, Fist,” said Maryanne. “Look at the sludge. It’s moving.”

  The gnome was right. Two weeks ago, the surface of the lake had been still like the skin on the top of a pudding. Now it rippled and surged as if large shapes were swimming around within its depths.

  “Ooh-ooh. Look,” Rufus said, pointing down with one long shaggy arm.

  One of those large shapes reached the shoreline and crawled onto the slope. It stood on two legs, taking on a vaguely humanoid shape as it lumbered up the slope. Fist couldn’t tell what it was. From this distance it looked to be made of the black sludge. It walked up to the stone door of the square building. The stone rolled to the side and it walked inside. The door shut behind it.

  “What the hell was that?” Maryanne asked.

  “Just a minute . . .” said Qenzic.

  “I think we have seen enough,” Fist said, pushing back from the edge. “Tell the academy and the Mage School to just send everybody.”

  “Wait. I-I’ve seen this place before,” Qenzic said, his brow knit in realization. “I mean, I’ve been here.”

  “You’ve been way up here?” Lyramoor said in disbelief. “How’d that happen?”

  “No. Not where we’re laying. Down there,” Qenzic replied. “I’ve been at the bottom of this thing. There wasn’t a lake there then. None of that black stuff, but I remember these cliffs. This canyon. There were trees down there back then. It was at the beginning of the war, back when we didn’t know what was going on with Ewzad Vriil or the moonrat mother. I was with Faldon and his advanced class. We had a group of Dremald soldiers with us and fought a huge battle against a goblinoid army down there. That was the first time I saw a moonrat with orange eyes.”

  “Just a moment,” said Locksher. “Did you say a moonrat with orange eyes?”

  “Yeah,” Qenzic said. “It was hiding under a rock down there, I think that big one you can just see the top of. We had the thing cornered and we started hearing the witch’s voice in our heads. Jhonate had to knock some sense into Poz and Jobar, and finally Faldon had to chop its head off.”

  “Right down there?” Locksher said, pointing, his eyebrows raised. “What did you do with the body?”

  “I-I don’t remember. It’s been a long time,” he said, scratching his head. “We threw it on top of the burn piles I’m pretty sure. Faldon was always very particular about that. Why. Do you think it’s important or something?” the man asked.

  Locksher blinked back at him. “Well, it’s hard to say. It could be.” The wizard scooted back from the edge and sat up. “This is all too strange and with these new developments . . . Fist, I need your help with something.”

  “What is it?” Fist said, pushing himself back.

  Locksher stood and brushed the snow off of his robes. “Something reckless I suppose,” he said with a shrug. “But if approached correctly, with the right mental focus it should be perfectly safe. Well, not perfectly, but safe enough.”

  “I don’t like the sound of this,” Maryanne said, moving to stand beside them. “What is this reckless thing that you want Fist to do?”

  Locksher shook his head. “You misunderstand. What I’m asking Fist to do isn’t reckless at all. It shouldn’t endanger anyone but me.”

  “Yeah. I don’t like that either,” Maryanne said, putting her hands on her hips.

  “What is it exactly that you plan to do?” Fist asked.

  Locksher looked around. “Lyramoor, did you say that cave was empty?”

  The scarred elf nodded slowly. “Yeah. It doesn’t smell all that good in there, but it’s vacant.”

  “Good. Let’s do this over there, shall we?” the wizard said and began walking to the large rock mound.

  Fist felt a tightness growing in his chest as he followed his master. Locksher did reckless experiments with magic all the time, but this was the first time that he had heard the wizard admit it beforehand. For him to do so meant that it was very dangerous indeed.

  “You planning some sort of attack?” Maryanne asked the wizard.

  “Of sorts,” Locksher said. “I would call it more of a fact finding mission.”

  “What kind of facts are you gonna find in a cave that far from the edge?” she asked incredulously. “You can’t even see the lake from there.”

  As Fist drew nearer to the cave he realized that it wasn’t naturally formed as he had thought from the cursory first glance he had given it. It had been dug into the rock by some large beast. As the wind and water had eroded the mound it had dug into, whatever lived there had piled boulders and rocks up all around it to protect it.

  The interior wasn’t all that large. Their whole party couldn’t have fit inside. Lyramoor had been right about the smell. It was organic and slightly sour, like it had been left by the sweat of the beast that had used the place. Bones and scraps of wood and tufts of long white hair were scattered all around the place.

  Locksher walked in, kicked a few bones aside, and nodded his head. “This will do nicely.”

  “For what!” Maryanne snapped. “We keep asking and you keep delaying the answer which tells me that we aren’t going to like this plan of yours one bit!”

  “Well, it’s not the sort of thing that one likes,” Locksher replied. “I need to do some . . . mental reconnaissance.”

  Lyramoor snorted.

  “That sounds like spirit magic to me,” Fist said. Reconnaissance wasn’t one of his words of the day, but he had heard it somewhere before. “You’re not going to leave your body are you? That’s how Ewzad Vrill got himself killed.”

  “No,” said Locksher. “Or at least not in that sort of way. I need to get inside the mind of this evil and sort out what it’s about. Don’t worry. It should be fine. I saw Jhonate do it once and she came out relatively unharmed from the experience.”

  “That is crazy,” Maryanne said.

  “I know what he’s talking about,” Fist said. “Justan told me about it. She went into the mother of the moonrat’s mind. By holding an orange moonrat eye.” The ogre blinked. “H
ow are you planning to do this?”

  “Frankly, Fist,” Locksher said, removing a slender box from inside his robes. He opened it to reveal a shriveled finger. It moved and Fist realized that there were larvae inside it. “I am going to let myself be infested.”

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Lyramoor laughed. “The lake’s right over there. Why don’t you just run off the edge and jump right in?”

  “That’s not funny,” said Maryanne, frowning.

  “Come on, he’s not serious,” said the elf.