The Ogre Apprentice (18 page)

“More illusion!” the imp snapped. “And powerful too. But nothing compared to what I can do to you. Give me the staff!”

Flames erupted from his hand, burning Tarah’s wrist and she cried out in pain. Esmine cried out along with her and the illusions faded, the image of the towering giant evaporating into thin air.

The imp sneered in triumph, “Perhaps I’ll simply take the staff once I’m done burning the flesh from your bones. I’ll-!”

The imp’s eyes caught movement coming towards him and turned his head just in time to meet Willum’s axe. The heavy blade struck the creature right between the eyes. The runes in the side of the axe flared on contact and an invisible blade of air cleaved the imp in two, tearing through his armor as if it were paper.

Willum sunk his axe into the imp’s remains so that Theodore could drink his fill and turned to Tarah. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” she said. Now that she was released from the bands of air, she switched her staff to her other hand and raised her arm to inspect the damage. The wrist was a bright red and her skin was white where the imp’s fingers hand been clamped onto her. It felt as if it were still on fire. “It gave me a nasty burn, but that’s about it. Thanks for coming in when you did.”

“Theodore warned me that you were in trouble.” Willum scratched his head. “He was surprisingly excited at the thought of striking down one of his own kind.”

“Oh gosh!” said Cletus’ voice from across the square.

Tarah glanced over at him. The gnome warrior’s eyes were focused on the altar and he didn’t see the angry orc that was running towards him. She shouted a warning, but it ended up not mattering. The gnome warrior didn’t bother turning around as he slung his chain weapon in an arc behind him, slicing through the doomed orc’s throat.

As the orc fell gurgling, Cletus flung the blood off the end of his chain weapon and darted towards them, dancing around the startled villagers. To Tarah’s surprise, he pushed his way between her and Willum. Standing in front of the altar, he took his shirt off in one smooth motion and placed it over the bound gnome’s lower body.

“Oh! Hello there, Cletus!” the gnome scholar exclaimed in surprise. “How nice. I didn’t expect that I would ever see you again.”

“Hello, Scholar Tobias,” Cletus said, grinning back at him. “I covered up your wee-wee.”

“And I am most grateful,” the scholar replied, struggling to sit up with the way he was bound. “Would you, er, mind helping me up?” Cletus helped him rise into a sitting position and began untying his bonds. The gnome scholar looked at Tarah and Willum appraisingly. “Very interesting weapons the two of you have. What sort of creatures are bound to them I wonder? They must be quite powerful for them to do what I just saw.”

They blinked at him. This gnome scholar seemed strangely observant.

“Tarah!” Djeri ran up to them, weaving around a cluster of men wearing brown robes, who were kneeling in praise to the god that they assumed had just saved them.

“Stupid turd eaters took longer to take down than I expected,” Djeri said as he arrived. The dwarf slid the long blade of the Ramsetter back into the sheath on his back. “It seems that the illusions only last so long. Once we took a few of those orcs down, they started seeing through it. We need to take that in mind for future raids. I-.” He winced, sucking in air as he looked at Tarah’s wrist. “Are you alright? That burn looks horrible.”

“It hurts pretty good,” she admitted, wincing back at him as he lifted her hand to look at it closer. Long blisters were rising up in the shape of the imp’s fingers.

“Some tomparro root would be good for a burn like that,” the gnome scholar commented. “Or xander melon sap. Unfortunately neither of those grow in these parts so that information isn’t very helpful. At any rate, you should tend to it quickly. A burn like that could leave scars.”

“I’ve got some healing salve in my pack. I picked it up from the wizards before we left,” Willum said. “I’ll be right back.” He retrieved his axe and rushed back towards the building where he had been waiting before the battle started.

“If only the wizards would have sent a mage along with us,” Djeri griped.

The Alberri Mage School had not been as helpful as they had wished. The wizards had healed Helmet Jan and replenished their supplies, but they had refused to get involved in their cause against Scholar Aloysius. Evidently they were too preoccupied with the current war to worry about the oncoming threat of a rogue gnome scholar and a relatively small army that, as far as they were concerned, hadn’t yet become involved in the conflict.

“Then you have been to our mage school,” said Scholar Tobias excitedly. “Have you met any other members of the resistance?”

Tarah and Djeri glanced at each other. The ‘resistance’ against Aloysius seemed to be a fairly flimsy one. The handful that they had met seemed quite scatterbrained and afraid. They only thing they had agreed upon was that Aloysius was dangerous. Hopefully they didn’t represent the limits of Tobias’ forces.

“We met a few scholars that were taking shelter at the school,” Djeri replied diplomatically. “They were the ones who told us to come to this village to find you.”

“How clever of them!” Tobias said proudly. “I am so pleased that they sent you in time to rescue me.”

“They didn’t know that you had been captured,” Tarah said. “They just said you were hiding here.”

The gnomes face fell slightly. “Ah well. It was a fortunate coincidence nonetheless.” A sudden gust of wind whipped through the area and he shivered. “A bit chilly today, isn’t it?”

“Do you know what they did with your clothes?” Tarah asked.

“Burned them, I’m afraid,” he said, his cheeks turning red. “It was quite humiliating. The village maidens got quite an eyeful.”

“
I doubt they were looking too hard
,” said Grampa Rolf. The specter of the old man was leaning up against the side of the building. He was still whittling the same piece of wood he had been when Tarah had last seen him.

Really? Is that comment coming from you, Esmine
? Tarah thought. Her grampa shrugged.

“What about this robe?” Cletus said pointing to the figure of the dead wizardess on the ground nearby. Her red robe was thick and voluminous, fluttering in the stiff breeze. “It’s nice. It looks warm and there’s hardly any blood on it.”

Tobias wrinkled his nose. “I can’t say that I like wearing red but it’s better than the nothing that I’m wearing now.”

Cletus pried the robe off of the woman. She was wearing a simple set of under garments beneath it. Tarah noted with distaste that the wizardess’ skin was covered in obscene tattoos.

As the gnome warrior carried the robe to the scholar, Tarah’s eyes caught the flash of something golden gleaming on the ground. She stepped closer, her curiosity momentarily distracting her from the pain of her burned wrist. It was the wizardess’ dagger.

It was long and wicked looking, made of black iron. The gleam she had seen came from the amber stones embedded in the hilt and base of the blade. The blade of the dagger was a strange thing. It turned in a corkscrew fashion almost as if someone with extremely strong hands had gripped it while it was red hot and twisted it a few times.

Tarah picked it up with her unburned hand and felt an immediate wave of revulsion. This thing seemed angry somehow. She almost dropped it right away, but felt compelled to look closer. The twisted blade was engraved with fine silver runes and the edges were covered with a rusty red powder that looked like dried blood.

“I don’t like the look of that thing,” Djeri said.

“
Me neither
,” said Grampa Rolf, pointing at it with his carving knife. “
Dagger like that’s got no edge. It’s got no good purpose but murder
.”

“Yeah, I don’t like it either,” Tarah agreed. Part of her was screaming that she should throw it away, but at the same time she really didn’t want to. “But I can’t just leave the thing laying here in the village, can I?” She didn’t know where to put it, so she tried to place it into the quiver that was slung over her shoulder. Tarah had to wiggle it back and forth to get it to fall in between her arrows. She felt relieved when she let go of it and shuddered as she wiped her hand on her pants. “I’ll take it out and bury it deep in the ground next chance I get.”

“Yeah, you do that,” Djeri agreed, eyeing her quiver with unease.

Willum ran back up to them, a small clay jar in one hand. He pried open the lid and held it out to her. “Here, try this on that burn. Theodore says it has some elf magic in it.”

“Thank you,” Tarah said and dipped two fingers inside. The salve that filled the jar was light blue in coloration, though to Tarah’s eyes it had sort of a blurry dark blur about it. It smelled strongly of mint, but of a variety she had never smelled before.

“Ah! Tomparro root just like I said,” exclaimed Scholar Tobias proudly. He had put the red robe on and belted it around his narrow waist. It was obvious that the garment wasn’t designed for a seven-foot gnome. The sleeves came several inches short and the length of it barely reached his knees. “Of course those wizards should know this sort of thing.”

Tarah pulled out a large glob of the salve and applied it gently to her red and swollen wrist. She felt a momentary flash of pain, followed by a cool tingly sensation spread across her skin. “Ooh. That is much better.”

“Well!” said Scholar Tobias. “I take it from your earlier remarks that the wizards at our local mage school haven’t yet seen fit to act against Scholar Aloysius?”

 “They said that they don’t wish to be involved in ‘gnomish politics’,” Djeri replied.

“And you told them of his army of demons?” Tobias asked, his eyebrows raised.

“You knew about that?” Djeri said in surprise.

Tobias snorted. “But of course.”

“How could you?” Djeri asked. “It only happened a week ago.”

The gnome gave him a self important smile. “My good young dwarf, if I did not make it my business to know these sort of things, what kind of resistance leader would I be?”

“
I don’t know. The kind that gets tied naked to an altar
?” said Grampa Rolf sardonically.

“Alright, fine,” Djeri said, narrowing his eyes at the gnome. “Yes, we told the wizards about the army and no, they didn’t seem too worried.”

“We’ll see if they keep that attitude when Aloysius takes his little army and assaults the capital,” Willum said, shaking his head as he resealed the bottle of salve.

“In actuality, they’re right not to worry about the capital at this point,” Tobias replied. “Scholar Aloysius isn’t taking his army there. They were marching in that direction earlier, but two days ago they changed course. Now they are headed east. I found out about their course correction just before that wizardess attacked the village.”

“East?” Djeri said in surprise. “That makes no sense. There are no targets of note in that direction.”

“Not in Alberri there isn’t,” corrected the gnome. “But Aloysius is taking his little army to Malaroo.”

“Malaroo?” Tarah said in disbelief. “There’s nothing there but a bunch of swamps. What could he possibly have to gain by taking an army down there?”

The gnome’s smile faded. “Oh, only the power to conquer the known lands.”

The arrow shot forty feet upward at a slight angle, arced softly, then, weighted by the steel arrowhead, fell back towards the earth. The plummeting arrow passed through a small brass ring affixed to a tree limb and struck the target that lie flat on the ground, sticking just outside the center circle.

“Yes!” Justan exulted. “Deathclaw, did you see that shot?”

Justan examined his bow again and noticed with excitement that another rune had faded away completely. That made three designs gone since Beltry had started him on this odd type of training over a week ago. He could feel the results. His bond with Ma’am felt stronger than before and she was more responsive to his wishes.

“You hit the target,” Deathclaw replied from his position a few yards behind Justan. He was sitting atop the tall white brick wall that surrounded this section of the archery range. He was facing Justan, his taloned feet dangling over the edge while he balanced a throwing knife on one claw-tipped finger. “It was ten feet away.”

“That’s not the point,” Justan said. “It was a soft shot. I couldn’t have done that before.”

“Yes you could,” Deathclaw said, he flipped the blade into the air, then caught it and threw it in one quick movement. The blade flew in a straight line, striking the target right next to Justan’s arrow, a fraction closer to the target’s center. “A simple shot at short range. Why worry about firing soft and fancy when a direct shot is just as effective? Perhaps you should train a useful skill.”

“You don’t get it,” Justan said exasperatedly. “It’s more of a subtle thing. I can now control how taut the bow is and that lets me fire at varying distances with greater precision.”

“You missed the center,” the raptoid pointed out.

Be nice
, Gwyrtha reminded. The rogue horse was lying on the ground beneath Deathclaw’s perch. Her eyes were shut and she looked as though she were asleep, but her mind was awake and in full concentration as she absorbed the sounds and smells around her. She hadn’t gotten much sleep since they arrived in Roo-Tan’lan. It was a good thing rogue horses had plenty of energy to pull on.

Justan shook his head and walked over to retrieve his arrow. Deathclaw had difficulty comprehending the intricacies of ranged combat, especially the intricacies possible with Jharro bows. The archery range they were standing in was designed to train just that kind of skill. Justan had never seen another one like it.

The range belonged specifically to the Leeths family and was located out behind Xedrion’s palace. Since it was within the confines of the city, high walls had been erected around it to protect the populace from stray arrows.

 The range was shaped like a key, with a large circular arena in the front and a long firing range at one end. The walls were especially tall at the sides and far corner of the range. The length of it was peppered with various types of targets, including some at the very end that laid flat on the ground for volley shots.

Justan stood in the arena. Half of the circle was taken up by a tall tower with platforms set at various heights so that archers could practice firing down on targets from above. The rest of the circle contained a tree nearly as tall as the tower. It was a dead tree, bare of leaves that had been trimmed to six thick overhanging branches. Brass hoops of different sizes had been attached to these branches in cunning arrangements. This was a range focused on training finesse shots.

Depending on where an archer stood and aimed, he could line up a soft shot that would pass through the center of multiple hoops. Beltry had demonstrated this for Justan by fired one arcing shot that had pierced five of them. And he wasn’t even the best. Supposedly the top archer in Xedrion’s guard had perfected a shot that pierced seven hoops and struck the center of one of the various targets on the ground.

Justan crouched and retrieved his arrow from the target. He put it away in his quiver and grabbed Deathclaw’s throwing knife.

“You’re getting better,” Justan remarked and he sent the knife back to the raptoid with an underhand throw. It arced a little higher than Justan had intended, flipping end-over-end above Deathclaw’s head. The raptoid reached up with his right hand, adeptly catching the weapon between two fingers.

“Yes I am,” Deathclaw agreed. He rolled the blade over the back of his scaled knuckles, something Justan had seen him practicing quite often since returning from his mission with Hugh the Shadow. Deathclaw stowed the knife in the bandolier he wore across his chest and looked down at the fingers of his right hand. “It is this hand. It makes many things easier.”

While Justan had been training his skill with the bow over the last week, Deathclaw had undergone training of his own. The raptoid had been teaching himself to transform his body.

Deathclaw had known for a while that the Rings of Stardeon had made the structure of his body unstable, but it was only recently he had found out that the adaptive blood magic of his dragon heritage allowed his body to transform its tissues much in the way that rogue horses could. He had discovered this after he had unknowingly changed the new lips that Justan had given him. Somehow he had made them firmer and more nimble, allowing him to speak more clearly.

This discovery excited Deathclaw because it allowed him to fix some of the errors Ewzad Vriil had made when transforming him. Specifically, the claws on his hands. They were long and deadly and made for effective weapons, essential for the life of a raptoid, but Deathclaw was something new. Effective as they were, they got in the way when he was using his sword or throwing his knives.

He had looked to Gwyrtha for advice on affecting the changes he wanted, but she was little help. Her makeup was more fluid than his and he didn’t have a rogue horse’s energy reserves to power his transformation. He had to use the energy in his own body. This meant that while Gwyrtha could change her form in seconds, changes in Deathclaw’s body were a slow and draining process.

Deathclaw had been eating twice as much food as normal to generate the energy needed. It also required an intense amount of concentration, something which he had little time for since protecting Justan was a full time job. Despite the difficulty, he had put his mind to it and was close to accomplishing his goal.

The fingers on his sword hand were now slightly shorter than before. The long claws at the end of his fingers, while still sharp and formidable, had shrunk considerably, leaving the pads of his fingertips larger and more sensitive. This allowed him a more deft and responsive grip.

Someone is coming
, Gwyrtha said suddenly, raising her head.
No, two someones
.

“I’ll see who it is,” Deathclaw said. He turned and slid over the edge of the wall, falling out of view. The raptoid ran across the grass on the other side and scampered across one of the bridges linking the palace grounds to the rest of Roo-Tan’lan.

Roo-Tan’lan was the strangest city Justan had been in. Even though Jhonate had described her homeland to him, Justan hadn’t been prepared when he’d first seen it. The city jutted from the forest like a great white arm. Multiple layers of wide squat buildings made of white brick were built on top of each other and terraced, each one of them surrounded by canals swollen with water.

It was an amazing engineering feat. Before migrating to this forest, the Roo-Tan had populated the great delta where the Wide River emptied into the vast Green Ocean. The hub of their society and culture had been swampland, and their cities had reflected that, using the waterways to their advantage. But the forest that surrounded the Jharro Grove was little like their homeland. So the Roo-Tan had decided to bring the water to them. They had cut into the bank of one of the Wide River’s tributaries and dug channels, diverting the water to their new proud city.

The design of Roo-tan’lan preserved their former culture. The flowing canals were used for transportation as well as the moving of goods around the city. A series of sluice gates could raise and lower the water levels as needed, channeling the water in different directions. The various buildings and walkways were connected by a series of bridges that could be raised if there was ever an invasion.

Deathclaw wasn’t gone long before Justan felt a mix of familiarity and irritation coming through the bond.
It is Beth. And she brought her child with her again
.

Oh
. Gwyrtha put her head back down and closed her eyes again.
Good
.

Justan smiled at Deathclaw’s discomfort. Beth had become a regular visitor since their arrival in the city. She mainly came to see Deathclaw. The two of them had been through a lot together during the siege of the Mage School and she had forged a connection with the raptoid that Justan found intriguing. She was the only human besides Justan that Deathclaw ever opened up to.

The baby was the reason for the raptoid’s discomfort. For some reason, Sherl-Ann adored Deathclaw. She smiled and reached out for him whenever he was near. Holding the child made Deathclaw uncomfortable. She was so delicate and helpless and he worried that his claws might scratch her. Beth wasn’t concerned. She forced the child onto him whenever possible. She said it was good for him to hold an infant.

Justan turned his attention back to his training. He notched another arrow on his bow and looked up at the tree, trying to find a good target path for his next shot. He let the world slow around him as he lined up a shot and did as Beltry had instructed him, envisioning the shot, letting Ma’am know exactly how he wanted her to fire. If things went perfectly, he would pierce two of the brass rings before striking the target on the far side of the tree.

“Practice shots again, Sir Edge?” came a female voice from behind him. Justan lowered his bow and turned to see that Beth had entered the arena.

Beth was a pretty woman in her mid thirties. She wore a loose white blouse with long sleeves and a pair of extremely baggy trousers cuffed tightly at the ankles. Her long blond hair was pulled up above her head in a bun. She carried a bow made of dark wood in one hand and a quiver holding a single arrow was slung over one shoulder.

“Good morning, Beth,” Justan said. He gestured with his bow. “Yeah, I’m getting better. Another design faded today.”

“Oh. That’s nice,” she said, not sounding at all impressed. She glanced up at the tree. “A Roo target tree. How many rings can you pierce?”

Justan blinked at her. She hadn’t shown any interest in his target shooting on her previous visits. “Three. But I’ve only managed one while still hitting a target.”

 “Come, come. The great, Sir Edge? Surely you can manage better than that.” She smirked and drew her single arrow. It had a thick white shaft and a black tip. It was an odd-looking arrow and Justan wondered if it had some sort of spirit bound to it. “It’s been a while since I tried one of these, but let’s see what I can manage.”

Without taking a step closer, she pulled the arrow back and aimed high into the air, preparing an arcing shot.

Gwyrtha raised her head with sudden alarm.
Not Beth
! she sent as she jumped to her feet.

Justan’s eyes widened and he took a step backward, but the woman didn’t turn the bow on him. She lined up her shot towards the tree and fired. The arrow soared up into the air and fell, piercing three small rings before burying itself into one of the targets beneath it. The woman smiled in triumph.

Justan drew back an arrow, but hesitated to fire. She seemed so real. What if Gwyrtha was wrong?
Are you sure
?

Get back
, Gwyrtha said. She was approaching Beth slowly, a low growl rising in her throat as the scales on her body hardened and her teeth lengthened.
I will kill it
.

Beth heard the sound and looked back at Gwyrtha. A look of irritation crossed her face. “Sir Edge, your rogue horse is growling at me.”

Justan fired.

His arrow burst through the woman’s right eye, rocking her head back. She didn’t fall, but slowly looked back at him, the eyebrow above her undamaged eye raising. No blood poured from her wound. “You like to go for the face, don’t you? Do you really think I’d keep my brain there?”

Justan drew another arrow. His heart raced. It was the nightbeast. After all this time waiting, here it was, standing before him.

“How did you know it was me?” Vahn asked, still using Beth’s voice. It was disturbing for Justan to see her standing there talking so calmly with his arrow still in her head.

“Beth wouldn’t refer to Gwyrtha like that,” Justan said.

Vahn snorted. “Of course. It would have to be one of those small detai-.” Justan’s second arrow caught it in the throat. Vahn winced. Its throat contorted around the arrow, pushing the shaft to the side, and it spoke again, “I shan’t be so careless next time.”

Gwyrtha let out a roar and darted towards it, but Vahn stepped aside at the last moment, letting the rogue horse skid by in the soft dirt of the range.

“We’ll continue this conversation at a later date,” the nightbeast said. It dropped its bow and ran for the gate. It was fast, running much quicker than Justan had expected Beth’s form to manage.

Gwyrtha chased after it and Justan fired again, his arrow catching the retreating figure between the shoulder blades. If it had been human that shot would have severed its spinal column, but the nightbeast only looked like it had a spinal column. Vahn made it through the gate, Gwyrtha at its heels.