hand on the Styric’s shoulder.
‘We’re fond of him,’ Danae said. ‘Why are you keeping your identity a
secret from him then?’
‘i’m not sure, father. Maybe it’s just because girls need secrets.’
‘That doesn’t make sense, you know.’
‘Yes, but I don’t have to make sense. That’s the nice thing about being
universally adored.’
‘Zalasta thinks we’re going to need the Bhelliom.’ Sparhawk decided to get
right to the point. ‘No.’ Aphrael said it very firmly. ‘I spent too much
time and effort getting it into a safe place to turn around and drag it out
every time there’s a change in the weather. Zalasta always wants to unleash
more power than is really necessary in situations like this. If all we’re
facing is the Troll-Gods, we can manage without Bhelliom.’ She held up one
hand when he started to object. ‘my decision, Sparhawk,’ she told him. ‘I
could always spank you and make you change your mind,’ he threatened. ‘Not
unless I let you, you can’t.’ Then she sighed. The Troll-Gods aren’t going
to be a problem for much longer.’
‘Oh?’ The Trolls are doomed,’ she said rather sadly, ‘and once they’re
gone their Gods will be powerless.’
‘Why are the Trolls doomed?’
‘Because they can’t change, Sparhawk. We may not always like it, but
that’s the way the world is. The creatures of this world must change – or
die. That’s what happened to the Dawn-men. The Trolls supplanted them
because they couldn’t change, and now it’s the turn of the Trolls. Their
nature is such that they need a great deal of room. A lone Troll needs
fifty or so square leagues of range, and he won’t share that range with any
other Troll. There just isn’t enough room left for them any more. There are
Elenes in the world now as well, and you’re cutting down trees to build
your houses and to clear fields for your crops. The Trolls might have
survived if they only had to live with Styrics. Styrics don’t chop trees
down.’ She smiled. ‘It’s not that we’re , really all that fond of trees.
It’s just that we )don’t have very good axes. When you Elenes discovered
how to make steel, you doomed the Trolls – and their Gods.’ That lends some
weight to the notion that the Trollgods may have allied themselves with
someone else,’
‘~Sephrenia noted. ‘if they can understand what’s happening, they’re
probably getting desperate. Their survival depends on preserving the Trolls
and their range.’ Sparhawk grunted. ‘That might help to explain something
that’s been bothering me,’ he said. ‘Oh?’ Sephrenia asked him. ‘if there’s
someone involved as well as the Troll-Gods, it might account for the
differences I’ve been feeling. I’ve been getting this nagging sense that
things aren’t quite the same as they were last time – jarring little
discrepancies, if you take my meaning. The major discrepancy lies in the
fact that these elaborate schemes with people like Drychtnath and Ayachin
are just too subtle for the Troll-Gods to understand.’ He made a rueful
Face. ‘But that immediately raises another problem. How can this other one
get the co-operation of the Troll-Gods if he can’t explain what he’s doing
and why?’
‘Would it offend your pride if I offered you a simpler solution?’ Danae
asked him. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘The Troll-Gods know that others are smarter than they are, and the one
you call ‘our friend’ has a certain hold over’ them. He can always cram
them back into Bhelliom and let them spend several million years in that
box on the sea-bottom if they don’t co-operate. Maybe he’s just telling
them what he wants them to do without bothering to explain it to them. The
rest of the time, he could ‘just be letting them blunder around making
noise. All that crashing through the bushes would certainly help conceal
what he’s doing, wouldn’t it?’ He stared at her for a long time. Then he
laughed. ‘I love you, Aphrael,’ he said, lifting her in his arms and
kissing her. ‘He’s such a nice boy,’ the little Goddess beamed to her
sister. Two days later, the weather changed abruptly. Heavy clouds swept in
off the Tamul sea several hundred odd leagues to the east, and the sky
turned suddenly murky and threatening. To add to the gloom, one of those
breakdowns in communications’ so common in all government enterprises
occurred. They reached a clan border marked by a several-hundred-yard-wide
strip of open ground about noon only to find no escort awaiting them. The
clan which had brought them this far could not cross that border, and,
indeed, looked nervously back toward the safety of the forest. ‘There are
bad feelings between these two clans, Sparhawk-Knight,’ Engessa advised
gravely. ‘It is a serious breach of custom and propriety for either clan to
come within five hundred paces of the line between them.’
‘Tell them to go on home, Atan Engessa,’ )Sparhawk told him. ‘There are
enough of us here to protect the queen, and we wouldn’t want to start a
clan war just for the sake of maintaining appearances. The other clan
should be along soon, so there’s no real danger.’ Engessa looked a bit
dubious, but he spoke with the leader of their escort, and the Atans
gratefully melted back into the forest. ‘What now?’ Kalten asked. ‘How
about some lunch?’ Sparhawk replied. ‘I thought you’d never think of that.’
‘Have the knights and the Peloi draw up around the carriage and get some
cooking fires going. I’ll go tell Ehlana.’ He rode back to the carriage.
‘Where’s the escort?’ Mirtai asked brusquely. Now that she was an adult,
Mirtai was even more commanding than she had been before. ‘i’m afraid
they’re late,’ Sparhawk told her. ‘I thought we might as well have some
lunch while we’re waiting for them.’
‘Absolutely splendid idea, Sparhawk,’ Emban beamed. ‘We thought you might
approve, your Grace. The escort should be here by the time we finish
eating.’ They were not, however. Sparhawk paced back and forth, chafing at
the delay, and his patience finally evaporated. ‘That’s it!’ he said
loudly. ‘Let’s get ready to move out.’
‘We’re supposed to wait, Sparhawk,’ Ehlana told him. ‘Not out in the open
like this, we’re not. And I’m not going to sit here for two days waiting
for some Atan clan-chief to mull his way through a message.’
‘I think we’d better do as he says, friends,’ Ehlana told the others. ‘I
know the signs, and my beloved’s beginning to grow short-tempered.’
‘-Er,’ Talen added. ‘You said what?’ Ehlana asked him. ‘Short-tempered-er.
Sparhawk’s always shorttempered. It’s only a little worse now. You have to
know him very well to be able to tell the difference.’
‘Are you short-tempered-er right now, love?’ she teased her husband. ‘I
don’t think there is such a word, Ehlana. Let’s get ‘ready and move on out.
The road’s well-marked, so we can hardly get lost.’ The trees beyond the
open space were dark cedars with swooping limbs that brushed the ground and
concealed everything more than a few yards back into the forest. The clouds
rolling in from the east grew thicker and the light back among the trees
grew dim. The air hung motionless and sultry, and the whine of mosquitoes
seemed to grow louder as they rode deeper into the woods. ‘I love wearing
armour in mosquito country,’ Kalten said gaily. ‘I have this picture of
hordes of the little blood-suckers sitting around with teeny little hammers
trying to pound their beaks straight again,’
‘They won’t really try’ to bite you through the steel, Sir Kalten,’
Zalasta told him. ‘They’re attracted by your smell, and I don’t think any
living creature finds the smell of Elene armour all that appetising.’
‘You’re taking all the fun out of it, Zalasta.’
‘Sorry, Sir Kalten.’ There was a rumble far off to the east. ‘The perfect
end to a day gone sour,’ Stragen observed, ‘a nice rousing thunderstorm
with lots of lightning, hail, driving rain and howling winds.’ Then,
echoing down some unseen canyon back in the forest there came a hoarse,
roaring bellow. Almost immediately there came an answer from the opposite
direction. Sir Ulath swore, biting off curses the way a dog tears at a
piece of meat. ‘What’s wrong?’ Sparhawk demanded. ‘Didn’t you recognise it,
Sparhawk?’ the Thalesian said. ‘You’ve heard it before – back at Lake
Venne.’
‘What is it?’ Khalad asked apprehensively. ‘it’s a signal that it’s time
for us to fort up! Those are Trolls out there!’
CHAPTER 22
‘It’s not perfect, friend Sparhawk,’ Kring said. a bit dubiously, ‘but I
don’t think we’ve got time to look for anything better.’
‘He’s right about that, Sparhawk,’ Ulath agreed. ‘Time’s definitely a
major concern right now.’ The Peloi had ranged out into the surrounding
forest in search of some defensible position. Given their nervousness about
wooded terrain, Kring’s horsemen had displayed a great deal of courage in
the search. ‘Can you give me some details?’ Sparhawk asked the