R. Salvatore - The Dame

The trolls had surprised them with their tenacity and with sudden reinforcements.

That would not happen again, Bransen, the Highwayman, had decided, and so, before he and his new friends had come to this point, he had circumvented the troll mob and ensured that this time there would be no reinforcements following closely along the road.

Still, the Highwayman could not deny the nervous sweat that made his sword less tight in his grip. He glanced back to Brother Jond and Cormack, to see them engaged in the same type of bonding that he and Jond had used to allow the blind monk to sense Bransen’s proximity. Milkeila had already done so, but the stubborn powries would have none of it.

Bransen had seen Mcwigik and Bikelbrin in battle. He flashed a much-needed grin their way and figured that those two wouldn’t need any help from Brother Jond.

Mcwigik noted his glance with a nod, then held up six fingers, clenched his hands together, and then held up one finger.

Six cogs one.

With an exaggerated wink, Mcwigik slapped Bikelbrin on the shoulder and the pair ran off around a ridgeline to the west.

So much like Crait and Olconna, Bransen thought, for in that earlier tragic battle those two had similarly separated themselves from the main fighting band in a flanking maneuver. This was not the same thing, Bransen reminded himself quickly. Mcwigik and Bikelbrin had concocted this plan and insisted upon it.

“Only to get themselves right in the midst of it,” Bransen whispered, trying to lighten his own mood.

Bransen took a deep and steadying breath, falling into the state of the warrior, the state of the Highwayman, as Cormack and Milkeila came up to either side of him, as the trolls below neared the designated spot. All three of them turned to the ridge west of the approaching trolls and sucked in their breath as one when they heard the opening cry of Mcwigik.

Over the ridge came the rambling powries, their short, powerful legs seeming more to roll than to pump, but propelling them surely and rapidly at the surprised trolls below. The dwarves hardly seemed to be paying any attention to their foes, but were looking back and yelling warnings of approaching enemies.

For powries and trolls, though not on the friendliest of terms, were not mortal enemies (outside of Mithranidoon, where all who were not troll did war with trolls) and had often banded together in Badden’s assault on the men of Vanguard.

“Great, now they’re ready for us,” Cormack muttered.

“Ah, but with a pair in their midst,” Milkeila said as the dwarves moved into the welcoming troll group.

“And looking the wrong way,” added the Highwayman, and he flipped off his farmer hat and pulled his black silk bandanna down into a half mask, holes cut for his eyes. “Be quick!”

Cormack stood a foot taller than the Highwayman, and most of the difference seemed to be in the length of his legs. But he couldn’t begin to pace the explosive speed of the silk-clad warrior. Fast as a hunting cat and silent as its shadow, the Highwayman closed the ground to the trolls far ahead of his two charging companions. As he neared, he heard Mcwigik yell, “Here they come!” and smiled as the dwarf pointed at the ridge over which he and Bikelbrin had run.

And the trolls were looking exactly that way when the Highwayman came spinning into their ranks from the other side, his fabulous sword of wrapped silverel, a Jhesta Tu sword crafted by his mother, slicing troll flesh as easily as it would dry parchment.

And the trolls were still looking that way when the two powries pulled stone axes from their belts and began chopping at them with abandon.

And the trolls were still looking that way when Milkeila’s shamanistic magic reached out to a nearby tree and coaxed down one of its branches to grab a troll about the neck and hoist it, flailing pitifully, from the ground.

The Highwayman cut through the first rank, took a fast stride at the dwarves, and then kicked off suddenly, throwing himself into a forward-diving somersault. He landed lightly on the other side of the pair, running still, and a slash to the right, a reversed backhand, behind-the-back stab back to the left had two more trolls down.

Cormack came in almost at the same time the bulk of the trolls finally grasped what was happening and tried to form some semblance of defense. Three of them fell into a skirmish line, just hoisting crude spears when the former monk flew at them, turning his body horizontal as he leaped. He beat the spears to the spot and sent all three trolls tumbling.

As the pile unwound, though, one of the beasts managed to re-angle its spear enough to stab at the man, tearing a painful gash on his hip. He squealed in pain but gritted through it and, still on his knees, unloaded a barrage of short and heavy punches into the troll’s face, crushing its bones and dropping it to the cold ground.

Milkeila was beside the man, then, and nearly as formidable in melee as in magic, the shaman cracked her staff hard on another troll’s head.

“Are you all right?” she called to Cormack as he came up beside her, but when she glanced at him, she found him strangely grinning. He led her incredulous gaze down to his wound, showing her that it was already on the mend-the magical mend.

Brother Jond. Six cogs one.

In a matter of heartbeats, the powries gleefully went about dipping their bloody caps into troll blood, and coaxed Cormack, who understood well that there was powerful and beneficial magic in a powrie cap, to do likewise.

“Not much of a fight,” Bikelbrin lamented.

“Yach,” Mcwigik agreed. “Someone find me a giant to kneecap!”

“We fight only when they’re in our way,” Bransen reminded them as he wiped his bloody sword on a troll vest. “Our goal is to the south, to Vanguard and Dame Gwydre.”

“To yer lady Cadayle, ye mean,” said Mcwigik.

“No less substantial a cause, then,” Cormack remarked with a wink at Milkeila.

Bransen cut short the conversation by nodding his chin back to the north, where Brother Jond was making his way along the road, tapping his walking stick before him.

“He healed me from afar,” said Cormack.

“Might be that he’s worth keepin’, then,” said Mcwigik. “But I ain’t standing watch over him!”

“No one asked you to,” Brother Jond answered from afar. “To be blunt, I feel safer knowing that no powries are hovering over me.”

That erased a few smiles.

“Six cogs one,” Bransen reminded, and he knew in looking at his mismatched companions that it would be an oft-repeated litany if they were to make it across the miles to the more hospitable reaches of civilized Vanguard.

Of course, once they arrived at the court of Dame Gwydre, a host of other problems would certainly emerge, Bransen knew, and as Cormack and Jond also certainly knew, in trying to explain Mcwigik and Bikelbrin to folk who had never known the bloody-cap dwarves as anything but mortal enemies.

They were smashed!” cried Yeslnik, the foppish Laird of Pryd and favored nephew of Laird Delaval, who proclaimed himself King Delaval of Honce. He flailed about as he spoke, his voluminous sleeves and leggings flapping and tightening over his limbs just often enough to remind those in the room of how delicate and stick-limbed this excitable man truly was. Not that any would remark on the man’s erratic movements, for Yeslnik was also widely rumored to be the heir apparent to Delaval’s expanding holdings.

“The son of Laird Panlamaris sent the traitors running back to the Mantis Arm! Oh, but we’ll make them regret their decision to take Ethelbert’s gold!” As he spoke, he danced around the circular chamber that marked the bottom floor of Pryd Keep, punching his fist into the air and smacking his hands together as if engaging in a battle with some imaginary foe.