David Eddings - The Shining Ones

‘He might as well’ Ulath shrugged. ‘The Trolls will attack as soon as they see us no matter what Cyrgon wants them to do. The idea of just defending themselves won’t even occur to them. They look on us as food, and somebody who sits in one place waiting for supper to come to him usually goes to bed hungry.’

‘Better and better,’ Vanion said. ‘We’ll hold our formation and let them get to within a few hundred yards of us. Then we’ll turn the Troll-Gods loose. They’ll reclaim their Trolls, and Cyrgon will be left standing out there in the middle of the meadow all alone.’

‘Or maybe not quite,’ Sephrenia added. ‘He might just have Zalasta with him. I certainly hope so, anyway.’

‘Savage,’ Vanion said fondly to her.

‘Let’s leave the army here and go round to the back side of the village,’ Sparhawk suggested. ‘If we’re going to talk with the Troll-Gods, I’d rather not do it out in plain sight.’ He turned Faran and led the others around the ruined village to a smaller clearing a few hundred yards to the east.

Sparhawk had deliberately not closed the box after Bhelliom had transported them to Tzada. This time he wanted his enemies to know where he was. ‘Blue Rose,’ he said politely, ‘canst thou find anything amiss in our plan?’

‘It seemeth sound to me, Anakha,’ the stone replied through Vanion’s lips. ‘It might be prudent, however, to advise the TrollGods that Cyrgon may reach back into antiquity for reinforcements once he doth perceive that the Trolls are no longer deceived by his assumed guise.’

‘Thou art wise, my friend,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘We shall so advise them.’ He looked at Aphrael. ‘Don’t pick any fights right now,’ he told her. ‘Let’s try to get along with our allies—at least until the battle’s over.’

‘Trust me,’ she said.

‘Do I have any choice?’

‘No, not really. Bring on the Troll-Gods, Sparhawk. Let’s get to work. The day won’t last forever, you know.’ He muttered something under his breath.

‘I didn’t quite hear that,’ she said.

‘You weren’t supposed to.’ He raised the glowing gem. ‘Please bring them forth now, my friend,’ he told it. ‘The Child Goddess doth grow impatient.’

‘I did notice that myself, Anakha.’

Then the vast presences of the Troll-Gods were there, glowing blue and towering enormous.

‘The time is come,’ Sparhawk announced in Trollish. ‘This is the place where Cyrgon has your children. Let us join together to cause hurt to Cyrgon.’

‘Yes’ Ghworg exulted.

‘I will remind you of our compact,’ Aphrael said. ‘You have given surety. I will hold you to your promises.’

‘Well will we keep them, Aphrael.’ Ghworg’s voice was sullen.

‘Let us repeat them,’ she said shrewdly. ‘Promises made in haste are sometimes forgotten. Your children will no longer eat my children. Is it agreed?’

Ghnomb sobbed his assent.

‘Khwaj will restrain his fire and Schlee his ice. Agreed? Ghworg will forbid your children to kill mine, and Zoka will permit no more than two cubs to each she-Troll. Is it agreed?’

‘Agreed. Agreed,’ Ghworg said impatiently. ‘Free us.’

‘In a moment. Is it also agreed that your children will become mortal? That they will age and die as do mine?’ They howled in fury. They had evidently been hoping in their dim minds that she had forgotten that promise. ‘Agreed?’ she bored in with a not-so-veiled threat in her voice.

‘Agreed,” Schlee said reluctantly.

‘Turn them loose, Sparhawk.’

‘In a minute.’ Then he spoke to the Troll-Gods directly. ‘It is our intent to punish Cyrgon,’ he told them. ‘Let him seem to have victory in his mouth before we jerk it from between his teeth. Thus will he suffer more.’

‘It speaks well,’ Schlee told the others. ‘Let us hear its words. Let us find out how the pain of Cyrgon may be made greater.’

Sparhawk quickly outlined their plan of battle. ‘Thus,’ he concluded, ‘when your children are ten tens of strides from Aphrael’s children and Cyrgon exults, you can appear and jerk your stolen children back from his grasp. In pain and agony may he bring his own children from the shadowy past to meet us. I will appeal to the Child Goddess and ask her to relent this once and let your children feast upon Cyrgon’s, and Cyrgon himself will feel their teeth as they rend and tear the flesh of his children.’

‘Your words are good, Anakha,’ Schlee agreed. ‘It is my thought that you are almost worthy to be a Troll.’

‘I thank you for thinking so,’ Sparhawk replied a bit doubtfully.

The army advanced at a steady trot. The Church Knights, their armor gleaming in the slanting rays of the newly risen sun and the pennons on their lances fluttering, rode forward, the hooves of their heavy war-horses crushing the knee-high grass of the meadow. The unmounted Atans loped along on either side, and Tikume’s Peloi, probably the finest light cavalry in the world, ranged out on the flanks. Despite Vanion’s violent objections, Sephrenia and Xanetia rode with the knights. Flute, for some obscure reason, rode with Talen this time.

They trotted perhaps two miles out into the frost-whitened meadow, and then Vanion held up his hand to signal a halt. Ulath blew a long, strident blast on his Ogre-horn to pass the word. Engessa, Betuana and Kring joined them.

‘We have more details now,’ Betuana told them. ‘Some of our scouts concealed themselves in the high grass to watch the Trolls. Cyrgon is exhorting the man-beasts, and there are several Styrics with him. My people don’t know the language of those monsters, so they couldn’t understand what Cyrgon was saying.’

‘It’s not too hard to guess.’ Tynian shrugged. ‘We’ve got quite an army here, and we’ve drawn up in the traditional battle formation. I’m sure Cyrgon thinks we’re planning to attack the Trolls. He’s preparing them for battle.’

‘Could your scouts recognize any of the Styrics, Betuana?’ Sephrenia asked, her face grim.

The Atan queen shook her head. ‘They couldn’t get that close,’ she replied.

‘Zalasta is there, Sephrenia,’ Xanetia said. ‘I can feel the presence of his mind.’

‘Can you hear his thoughts, Anarae?’ Bevier asked her.

‘Not clearly, Sir Knight. He is not yet close enough.’

Vanion frowned. ‘I wish we could get some assurance that this ruse of ours is working,’ he fretted. ‘This could turn very ugly if Zalasta’s got any idea at all of what we’re planning. Could your scouts get any kind of estimate about how many Trolls are out there, your Majesty?’

‘Perhaps fifteen hundred, Vanion-Preceptor,’ Betuana replied.

‘That’s almost the whole herd,’ Ulath observed. ‘There aren’t really very many Trolls.’ He made a wry face. ‘There don’t really have to be. One Troll’s a crowd all by himself in a fight.’

‘If we were planning a battle, would we have enough men?’ Tynian asked him.

Ulath wobbled one hand back and forth uncertainly. ‘It’d be touch and go,’ he replied. ‘We’ve only got about twelve thousand. Attacking fifteen hundred Trolls with so few would be an act of desperation.’

‘Our ruse is believable, then,’ Vanion said. ‘Cyrgon and Zalasta shouldn’t have any reason to suspect a trap.’

They waited. The horses of the knights were restive and grew more difficult to control as the minutes ticked by. Then an Atan woman came running back across the frosty meadow.

‘They’ve started to move, Betuana-Queen!’ she shouted from about a hundred yards out.

‘It worked, then,’ Talen said gleefully.

‘We’ll see,’ Khalad said cautiously. ‘Let’s not start dancing in the streets just yet.’