Don Bassingthwaite - The doom of Kings

Geth, well ahead, came trotting back to them. “What happened?”

“I think his ankle is broken.”

“Grandfather Rat!” Determination crossed his face. “Chetiin, Midian-watch for those trolls! Ashi, scout forward and find the edge of the thorns. We’re close.” He squatted, dropped his voice, and spoke to Dagii and Ekhaas. “Can you walk, Dagii?”

“With help,” Dagii said. “But I can’t run. Maabet! You’re almost out-leave me!”

“No. Ekhaas, can your magic get him back up?”

The shifter had some idea of the capability of her songs to heal. She’d used them on him before. Ekhaas looked down at Dagii’s ankle, still encased in the boot, trying to guess at the damage. “I don’t know how bad it is, and I don’t think we have time to get the boot off to look. It would need to be set-”

Geth dropped Aram, grabbed Dagii’s foot by toes and heel, and pulled hard.

Dagii roared in pain. He reached forward, lashing out, but Geth rocked back away from his punch. “It’s set! Do what you can.”

“Geth!” shouted Midian. “The trolls have gone quiet!”

The crashing had stopped. The trolls must have realized they weren’t fleeing anymore. The monsters were stalking them again.

Ekhaas looked at Dagii. “I can heal it partially. You’ll still be in pain and you might hurt yourself more by trying to run.”

“Do it,” Dagii said through his teeth.

She wrapped his hands around his ankle and drew on the song again. She heard Dagii gasp and knew that he’d felt the touch of healing magic, as wild and sharp as if her song had drawn on the beginnings of life itself. His eyes opened wide. His ears rose again. Ekhaas held on as long as she dared, letting the magic do its work of knitting bones and flesh together, then released him. Geth was already standing, and he helped Dagii to his feet. Dagii put his weight on the ankle and winced, then nodded. “It will do. Where are the trolls?”

“Too close,” said Chetiin. He stared into the darkness, ears twitching, then pointed. “That way. They’ll break if we run, and I don’t think the thorns will slow them down. They’ll catch us before we’re through.”

Geth cursed. “We need to slow them. Ekhaas, can you make another phantom lantern?”

“It wouldn’t fool them again. I have an idea, though.” Her throat was raw from the power that she had channeled through it-from Dagii’s healing and the illusions she had cast, from the sustained song that had gained them ground on the trolls-but she had the strength for one more song. She focused her attention in the direction Chetiin had pointed and shaped her voice into bright and rippling notes.

Bright sparks of light condensed out of the air, like sunlight given form. The sparks drifted and floated, leaving a glittering dust on the undergrowth, but especially on the trolls.

The lurking monsters were caught off guard. Five of them stood confused among the sparks. They swatted at the glimmering cloud as if at insects, but the whirling lights only seemed to get thicker. Dust stuck to them, turning rubbery flesh golden. One of the trolls wailed and scrubbed at its eyes. An instant later, they were all doing it, blinded by the dust. The trolls didn’t stop, though. With eyes watering and arms groping ahead of them, they kept coming.

“It won’t last,” said Ekhaas. Her voice was a croak. “It will buy us time, though. Come.” She gestured at the lantern glow that was Ashi, waiting at the edge of the thorns.

Geth bared his teeth and his hand tightened on Aram. “It won’t buy enough time. You, Dagii, and Ashi go. Chetiin, Midian, and I will see what we can do to slow them even more while they’re blind. It takes them time to regrow legs and heads, right?”

Midian looked aghast at the suggestion. Ekhaas would have protested herself, but Dagii met her eyes and silenced her with a shake of his head. He looked at Geth. “Paatcha,” he said and thumped a fist against his chest.

“We’ll be right behind you.”

The shifter charged at the glittering, dust-blind trolls. Midian, face pale, went after him. Chetiin paused for a moment, though, and glanced up at Ekhaas and Dagii.

“In case he’s wrong,” he said, “you should know I made it past the troll nest. The stairs end at some kind of shrine.”

Then he turned and followed Geth.

An old hobgoblin warrior’s proverb came to Ekhaas’s mind: Chiit guulen pamuut ran. “There is strength in honoring sacrifice.” She put her back to the goblin, the shifter, the gnome, and the trolls and hurried to Ashi. Dagii must have been thinking of the same proverb because he turned with her, moving with a grim expression on his face and a limp in his step. Ashi’s face was tight when they reached her. “What are Geth and the others-?”

“They’re buying us time,” said Ekhaas. “Go.”

They plunged into the thorns, moving as fast as they could. There was no need for silence now-Ashi swapped the lantern for Dagii’s sword and hacked at the brambles, clearing a path. The springy branches still leaped back and forth, leaving them all with bloody scratches on their hands and faces. The trolls were howling behind them and Geth was roaring, but Ekhaas refused to turn back and look. Abruptly, the sky was open above them, and they were out from under the trees. Only a few moments more and they were clear of the thorns altogether and racing up the grassy slope of the valley.

Flames burned on the valley rim, and big silhouettes stood against the rising disk of the orange moon Olarune. The bugbears, drawn by the howls and screams of the trolls, had emerged from their camp to stare down at the dark forest. A few of the bolder members of the tribe had crept a little way down into the valley, torches in one hand, small pots of pine pitch bound to leather slings in the other. Confusion erupted as the bugbears spotted the three of them-clearly not trolls-climbing the slope. Ekhaas shouted at them in Goblin. “Brothers! Sisters! By the blood that makes us one people, help us! The trolls are coming! In the name of ancient Dhakaan, we need your help!”

The words were barely out of her mouth when a new crashing came from the forest and, like an explosion, two trolls erupted from the thorns. The confusion of the bugbears changed to rage and fear. A deep voice rose above the chaos. “Trolls, go back! By blood and fire, we have peace! Go back!”

As if they understood the words, the trolls came up short-then reared back, roaring and thumping big hands against their chests.

The owner of the deep voice repeated his warning. “Go back!”

The trolls whooped louder. “Torches and pitch!” the voice boomed out, and along the valley rim flames leaped higher as the bugbears began to wave their torches. The bugbears who carried them swung their pitch pots in whizzing circles, the motion fanning the smoldering flames and turning the pots into screaming balls of fire. The trolls’ cries faded and their flailing arms came down. It seemed that they grumbled to each other, then they backed away from the fiery display and disappeared into the thorns once more.

“Geth,” said Ashi numbly. “Chetiin. Midian. Where are they?”

Ekhaas turned away from the forest and climbed higher on the slope, scanning for the source of the deep voice. She found him-a big bugbear holding a massive fork-like trident. “Chib!” she called. “We have friends in the forest! They need help, too!”

The bugbear chief gestured with his fork. “Utaa!”

One of the other bugbears moved, his arm whipping around as he hurled something. Ekhaas saw a heavy shape fly at her out of the night, then pain and darkness exploded in her head.

To Baron Breven d’Deneith, Greetings.