The Ogre Apprentice (48 page)

If the dragon had been fully dead, these attacks wouldn’t have mattered. But the creature, though driven mad and controlled by the evil compulsions of the larvae, still felt pain. It let out an ear-splitting roar.

Finally, Maryanne’s quiver did its job. A shock arrow reappeared and Maryanne shot it right into the dragon’s open mouth.

The dragon was a massive creature, but the electric energy contained in the arrow was enough to kill the majority of the larvae in its body. It swung its head around in pain and confusion and Rufus saw the opening he wanted.

Kill the dragon
! The powerful rogue horse leapt up and wrapped both arms around the dragon’s long neck. He squeezed and twisted and bit its neck with his two large fangs, while he raked at its body with the powerful claws on his rear legs. Hot blood poured from the stunned dragon. Then with a final crack, Rufus snapped its neck and it fell lifeless to the ground.

“Kill!” Rufus roared and slammed the dead dragon with his mighty fists over and over again until the urge had passed. There was only one compulsion left.
Drink the lake
.

“
No
!” Fist shouted aloud and through the bond.
Come here, Rufus! Come to me! I am Fist! I will help you
!

The rogue horse turned his enraged gaze onto the boulder and the large figure standing on top of it.
Kill the ogre
!

This wasn’t exactly what Fist had in mind. He shoved feelings of kindness through the bond.
Come here Rufus. Don’t kill me, though
.

“Kill ogre!” Rufus roared. He reared back and beat his chest, then ran towards the boulder, using his powerful rear legs and the knuckles on his hands to propel him forward. He was fast.

“He looks mad,” Maryanne warned.

“
I’m nice! Nice Fist
!” Fist exclaimed as the rogue horse pounded up the hillside, reaching the boulder in seconds.

“Kill ogre!” Rufus swatted aside the corpses in his way and leapt, his huge hands gripping the lip of the rock and pulling him up.

“What do I do?” Maryanne asked.

“Just fight the dead,” Fist said, and found himself on his back. Rufus was on top of him, the rogue horse’s rear claws digging into the ogres legs. Rufus reared back, his massive arms raised in the air, his fists ready to pound.

Sorry Rufus
, Fist said and sent threads of air and earth through the bond, shocking the rogue horse from within.

Rufus jerked and collapsed on top of Fist, his weight pinning the ogre to the rock. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” Fist said to the unconscious beast, patting him gently.

“Uh, we’re in trouble, here,” said Maryanne. Having fired all her arrows, shock and regular, she was back to slicing fingers with her knives. “There’s too many! I could use some help!”

“I need to heal him,” Fist said, trying to work his way out form under Rufus without getting too close to the boulder’s edge. “Grab my mace. It’ll make you faster.”

Maryanne snorted. “It would have to make me a
lot
faster.” She grasped the handle of the mace and swung her knife with wicked speed. A giggle escaped her lips. “That could do it.” The gnome warrior darted around the boulder, laughing as she sliced off the grasping digits of any creature that climbed close enough.

Fist gave up on getting out from under Rufus and closed his eyes, entering the bond, checking the rogue horse’s injuries. He was immediately overwhelmed by the flood of colorful magic coursing through Rufus’ every cell. So this is what Justan saw when he looked inside Gwyrtha. By everything Fist could see, Rufus should just fall apart, but somehow a balance had been struck in the magic.

Fist forced himself to look past the colors. Rufus had several minor puncture wounds and one long gash along his side, which was how the larvae had gotten inside his body. Those were easy enough for Fist to heal. The difficult part was discerning what to do about the remains of the dead larvae in his system. It was too complicated for him to figure out. Fist had no choice to leave them alone and hope that the rogue horse’s body would flush them out on its own.

He withdrew his thoughts from the rogue horse’s body and called out to him. “
Rufus! Wake up
!”

Rufus stirred. The rogue horse raised his head and looked around. “Ooh!”

“Um, as fun as this is, I’m getting tired here,” Maryanne said. “Please tell me you’re done, Fist!”

The wide boulder was now surrounded by hundreds of grasping dead, wanting noting more than to reach the people on top. Maryanne’s work had made this difficult for them though, because those in the front of the press no longer had fingers to climb with. Nevertheless, stronger and bigger creatures were pushing their way towards the front. To make things worse, the dead dragon had now risen and was making its slow way up the hillside towards them.

Rufus rose on all fours and looked down at the ogre. “Ooh! Ooh! You!” the rogue horse said. He reached out and touched Fist’s face and a wide smile split his huge mouth. “Ooh! Fist!”

“That’s right,” Fist said, smiling back at him.

The rogue horse grabbed the front of Fist’s breastplate and pulled him to his feet. “Okay?” Rufus asked and Fist saw that Squirrel was already sitting on top of the rogue horse’s head.

“If we can survive this,” Fist said, looking at the dangers that surrounded them.

“Here,” Maryanne said, gasping as she handed the ogre back his mace. “Please tell me you have a great plan to save us that doesn’t require me to do anything else.”

Fist shrugged at her and looked down at the milling mass beneath them. “I think I do. I’m going to try that cloud lightning spell.”

“Didn’t you kill yourself doing that last time?” the gnome asked, her voice concerned. She stomped on the fingers of one corpse and kicked it back into the crowd.

“Yes, but it wasn’t permanent.” He gave her a playful smile. “I’d rather have you bring me back than Charz.”

She smiled back. “Not funny.”

“It’s the only thing we can do,” Fist said.

He sent a swirling gust of wind around the boulder, kicking up dust. Then he reached out and sent a web of water into the air. A cloud of mist began form around the boulder. Fist focused, pushing the cloud outward. Sweat began to bead on his brow. This was going to be harder than he thought. He’d spent a lot of energy bringing down the rock wall and healing the rogue horse. If he released the spell as tired as he was now, he wouldn’t be able to ground himself. Squirrel and Rufus would die too.

“Me!” said Rufus, tapping his chest with his fingertips. He pointed at Fist. “You!”

“Yes, Rufus?” Fist said, confused at first. “Oh! Right! You’re a rogue horse and I can do that now! Good idea.” Fist reached through the bond and tried to duplicate the way Justan did it, tapping into the rogue horse’s energy reserves and pulling them into his own body.

Suddenly he was filled with energy. Too much energy! His hands were shaking. His teeth chattering.

Hurriedly, he threw out another web of water magic. The mist around the boulder thickened and spread along the ground, covering the hillside and a good portion of the shoreline. Fist turned his head and smilled back at Maryanne. “This is going to work.”

Fist picked up his shield and mace and faced the mist. He started threads of air and earth crackling around his body. The thick cloud obscured everything making it seem so peaceful here, almost as if the four of them were alone atop the boulder high up in the sky. Then the dragon’s head rose out of the mist and reared back, its broken neck bent oddly.

Fist jumped off of the boulder, leading with his shield. He crashed through the milling mass of dead, and stood, raising a thick barrier of earth magic over his skin, before pushing everything else he had into the crackling field of energy around him.

Hands reached for him. Biting jaws. He could feel the pressing anger of the maggots all around him against the bond.

With a primal roar, he sent the vibrating and crackling threads of magic away from his body in a violent burst. The cloud he had created filled with light, electricity passing through every droplet of water vapor.

Fist grit his teeth, waiting for the energy to slice through the barrier he had put up. But the energy was gone. The mist faded. The hillside was covered with the bodies of the unmoving dead.

Fist leaned back against the boulder and laughed. “It worked!

Maryanne and Rufus climbed down and stood by the ogre, looking out over the black lake. The spell hadn’t touched everything. The dead at the edge of its range started to stand. The surface of the black lake rippled, misshapen forms rising from the depths and making their way towards the shore.

“Well, Fist?” Maryanne said. “You ready to go now?”

“We’d better,” Fist said. “Locksher will want to know what we found. They should be in the Thunder People territory by now.” He looked up past the hilltop at the familiar mountainside in the distance and sighed. “It’s going to be a long walk.”

“Ride?” Rufus asked hopefully.

Justan paused outside the palace infirmary, Peace clutched in his hand. It was strange. His emotions were being taken away by the sword, but the thought that his friend and mentor was in there, dying, paralyzed him. Justan had thought about what to say to Hilt the whole ride there. Nothing seemed quite right.

“Just go in,” Deathclaw complained.

Jhonate placed her hand on Justan’s shoulder. “Tell him that Vahn is dead. Yntri is avenged. That is all he’ll want to know.”

Justan nodded. He sheathed his sword, accepting all the pain that rushed over him. He couldn’t let the sword help him hide from this. He reached out and grasped the door handle, then pushed. The doorway opened and Justan saw Hilt.

The named warrior was sitting on the edge of one of the grass mat beds, holding his daughter Sherl-Ann in one arm. She was grabbing his ear, tugging on it, and he was smiling. He looked fine. He wasn’t even bandaged! Beth was sitting next to her husband, her arm around his waist.

“Hilt!” Justan exclaimed, forgetting about the pain in his body as he pushed his way through the door.

“Edge, you’re back,” the named warrior said, looking at him with concern. “What happened to you?”

“I thought you were dying,” Justan said, limping in further. “Deathclaw said your wound was mortal.”

Jhonate pushed in past him, a smile on her face. “You survived!”

“It ends up there was a mage in Xedrion’s prison,” Beth said, nodding her head towards the right side of the room. “I had to convince your father to release her.”

Justan turned to see who Beth was referring to. His mouth dropped open in shock. “Vannya!”

“Sir Edge,” said the beautiful mage. Her long blond hair was disheveled and her normally pristine robes were bunched and wrinkled. She looked quite put out. “You were supposed to set this up before I got here. I was grabbed off of the road by soldiers. Manhandled-!”

Justan rushed forward and wrapped her in a tight embrace. “Thank you! Thank you for being here. I’m so sorry. So much was going on, I forgot that Fist had mentioned you might come.”

“I . . . I’m glad I was able to do something in time.” Her hands hesitantly rose and she embraced him back. Justan was so happy that she was there that he didn’t mind the way his ribs cried out. Despite her ragged appearance, the mage still had that pleasant smell.

Jhonate cleared her throat. “You deserve all of our thanks, Mage Vannya.”

Justan let go of her and stepped back, his face coloring. “It’s really a miracle.”

“I just wish I had been able to do more with his hand,” she said.

Justan looked over at the named warrior. Hilt raised his left arm and gave him a wan smile. The flesh around his wrist was puffy and red and covered with scar tissue. His fingers were curled inwards. Hilt strained and was able to get them to straighten slightly. “It least she was able to put it back on.”

“It had been too many hours since he lost it,” Vannya said apologetically. “I used every flesh restoration technique I knew, but there was extensive nerve damage. If he works hard enough at it, he should be able to get most of his movement back, but it may never be completely the same.”

Deathclaw approached the named warrior and clutched his maimed hand. “Do not fear. You will kill many with this hand yet.”

Hilt chuckled in surprise. “Why, thank you, Deathclaw.”

Sherl-Ann noticed the raptoid and cried out, reaching for him. Sighing, the raptoid took her from her father, his expression stoic as the baby giggled and smacked his face repeatedly.

“Where is father?” Jhonate asked. “I had assumed he would be here.”

“He went back to the prison,” Beth said. “Evidently Mage Vannya wasn’t our only recent visitor.”

“Um, Sir Edge? May I heal that wound on your face?” Vannya said, giving Jhonate a hesitant look. “It’s driving me crazy that you haven’t asked yet.”

“Please. Would you?” Justan replied with a sigh. This was going to be so much better than long days of soreness.  “And take a look at my neck and ankle too.”

Vannya waited for Jhonate to give her a nod of acquiescence. Then the mage reached up and grasped Justan’s head, sending her magical energies into his body. The mage’s eyes widened. “It looks like you took a serious fall! How are you still moving?”

“My s-sword,” Justan explained, gasping as Vannya used a complex mix of water, earth, and air to repair the damage all over his body. “H-how long were you in the prison?”

“Hours!” she complained. “They threw me in a cell and gave me nothing to eat but bananas! One guard kept a bow trained on me the whole time like, just because I can use magic, I was going to go around throwing fireballs at people or something.”

“I apologize for their behavior,” Jhonate said. “The distrust for wizards runs deep among my people.”

“So what happened to the three of you?” Beth blurted. “We keep chatting, but you’ve been gone for a long time! Did you track the nightbeast down?”

“He’s dead,” Justan confirmed through gritted teeth. Vannya was finished with the main injuries and was now working on the more minor bruising, something that tickled terribly.

“I dealt the death blow,” Deathclaw added.

“Fantastic! I hope you made it hurt,” Beth said, gripping the raptoid’s arm proudly.

Justan grunted. “I f-found out who sent Vahn after me.”

“Who?” Hilt asked.

“The Dark Prophet,” Justan replied, trying not to react to what Vannya was doing. “Vahn had a rune from the Dark Bowl.”

“Done,” Vannya announced, releasing her magical energies and letting go of him.

“Thank you,” Justan sighed. He felt immensely better, though now he was so tired he was ready to collapse. “Vahn said that he’s scared of the Scralag inside me.”

“That means he knows about Artemus and the prophecy he was given,” Beth mused.

“I’m wondering how close he is to coming back,” Hilt said, rubbing his damaged hand and trying to stretch the fingers out. “John seemed to think we had years.”

“I’m not so sure,” Justan replied. “And right now I’m wondering if this is over. Will he just keep sending more assassins?”

The door to the infirmary swung in again and Xedrion strode in. He grasped Jhonate’s arm, his expression worried. “I heard you had returned.” He looked to Justan. “Is it done?”

“Yes,” Justan said. “The nightbeast is dead.”

Some of the tension left the protector’s shoulders. “That is good. Come, there are some people waiting outside that I think you know.”

Xedrion went back outside and Justan followed. Standing outside and surrounded by Roo-Tan guards were two familiar figures. Justan smiled in surprise.

“Willum? What are you doing here?” Justan asked, reaching out to clasp his friend’s hand.

“We brought a message,” Willum replied. “We-uh, actually didn’t know you were here until the Protector of the Grove mentioned it.”

Justan looked over at the second visitor. “And Jerry the Looker, what are you doing wearing Lenny’s armor?”

The well-groomed dwarf was dressed in his uncle’s famous platemail, the helmet clasped under one arm. “He loaned it to me when he heard about our mission.”

Justan folded his arms. “And what mission is that? Did the academy send you?”

“Not exactly,” Djeri said.

“They inform me that an army of demons is coming our way,” Xedrion said.

“Right,” Justan said. “The Prophet said that something was coming. I didn’t get the chance to mention it to you yet. I don’t have any other details, though.”

“Well, we can tell you all about it,” Willum said.

“We can,” said Djeri, raising a qualifying finger. “But first, we need to take you to see Tarah Woodblade.”

*          *          *

The Troll King sat on his throne and waited anxiously, the claws of his trollish left hand tapped against the crumbling stone. The throne was a thousand-years-old and had once been lavish and beautiful, covered in precious stones imbued with spirit magic. The cushions had rotted away centuries ago and the stones were long gone, taken by the Roo people when they abandoned their great city.

His throne room was in the Axis Palace, once the seat of power among all the Roo. The palace had housed thirty high priestesses over the years, but up until a month ago, it had been infested by muskrats. Vines still stretched in through the gaping hole where the palace doors had been.

The once great city of KhanzaRoo had been reclaimed by the swamps. All the wooden buildings had rotted. All the bridges were gone. The only structures remaining were the stone buildings. The great palaces and libraries. But these were covered in vines and overgrowth. Trees had carved roots into their very foundations.

The Trollkin were still hard at work clearing the buildings so that they could be used again. Some of them were even building new structures from the wood of the trees that were removed. The Troll King’s people had been born with so many great talents and they were still being discovered.

The king sat up in his throne as he heard the approach of heavy feet coming up the outer steps. He knew it was Murtha before her squat form appeared. The part-dwarf had been monitoring the situation for him.

“She is here!” said Murtha, her snarl showing her multiple rows of needle-like teeth. She was short for a trollkin at just under six feet, but was intelligent and observant. She was his most trusted servant and had become his right hand. “The invader c-comes!”

“Come,” said the Troll King, beckoning his part-dwarf subject forward. “Attend me.”

She hurried to stand at his side and he leaned back, steepling the fingers of his two very different hands together. This was a crucial moment. The future of his people could be decided right here.

Two large trollkin, his palace guards rushed in and stood at attention at the open doorway. One of them was Khurley, a hulking part-man with a small misshapen head. The other was Recks, a part-elf with nearly handsome features, razor-like claws on his hands, and skin that produced an overabundance of non-flammmable slime that practically poured from his body.

The invader appeared in the doorway. She was a human woman, voluptuous, with brown skin and striking green eyes. Curly black hair cascaded from her head with a single blond lock dangling at her forehead. Her movements were sensuous, almost snakelike as if the bones in her legs were an afterthought.

The woman smiled as she entered, her full lips parting to show even white teeth. “Look at this place! It’s falling apart, but oh how I’ve missed it!

“Announce yourself!” Murtha demanded. “You stand before the Troll K-king!”

“Pardon me, oh great king,” she said, giving the king a flowing curtsey. “My name is Mellinda. I am here at this time of your people’s infancy to offer you my services.”

The king lifted his left hand and pointed one taloned finger at her. “Mellinda, you say? My people claim that you were using a different name when you first showed up in our swamps. You called yourself the Troll Queen.”

Her smile froze for a fraction of a second and then she let out a low throaty laugh. “I must apologize for that. I have been gone for such a very long time that I forgot my place.”

The woman had been in the swamps for a week now, roaming around. She had first gone to the original location of the Mother’s womb. She had used some sort of magic to force one of the trollkin there to answer questions. Since then, she had been wandering around and accosting his people, alternating from making demands to making promises. A few of them had tried to kill her, but she had simply paralyzed them with spells and moved on.

“My people have no queen,” the Troll King said. “There is only me, their king, and the Mother.”

The woman gave him a contrite look. It looked unnatural on her face. “Once again, I am sorry. I am here on behalf of the Troll Mother herself, of course. I have known her for a long time. In fact, I was there centuries ago when she made her first children. I was there to serve her then, to help her bring them into the world. Now I return to help her new children at your side, oh great king. I would be an advisor to you. If you’ll let me.”

The king nodded slowly. This was as he had expected so far. “I spoke to the Mother this morning. She warned me that you were coming.”

“Warned?” said Mellinda, placing a sinuous hand against her chest. Gemstones sparkled on the back of each finger. She cocked her head. “Whatever did she say?”

 “She said that she knew you well,” the king replied, his eyes intense. “The Mother said that you were once very nearly a goddess yourself.”

“How flattering,” Mellinda said. “She remembers me.”

The human side of the king’s mouth smiled. “But she has been watching you since you entered her swamp. Now she says that you are just a snake.”

The woman’s smile slipped. “My feelings are hurt, oh king.”

“Why should you be hurt?” he asked. “Some snakes have their use. The Mother told me so. The question I have is, what kind of snake are you?”

“I don’t like being compared to a snake,” Mellinda muttered, irritation flashing in her eyes. She turned her voice sultry. “As for my uses, I have many.”