of his mind.’
‘Can you hear his thoughts, Anarae?’ Bevier asked her.
‘Not clearly, Sir Knight. He is not yet close enough.’
Vanion frowned. “I wish we could get some assurance that
this ruse of ours is working,’ he fretted. ‘This could turn very
ugly if Zalasta’s got any idea at all of what we’re planning. Could
your scouts get any kind of estimate about how many Trolls are
out there, your Majesty?’
‘Perhaps fifteen hundred, Vanion-Preceptor,’ Betuana replied.
‘That’s almost the whole herd,’ Ulath observed. ‘There aren’t
really very many Trolls.’ He made a wry face. ‘There don’t really
have to be. One Troll’s a crowd all by himself in a fight.’
‘if we were planning a battle, would we have enough men?’
Tynian asked him.
Ulath wobbled one hand back and forth uncertainly. ‘it’d be
touch and go,’ he replied. ‘We’ve only got about twelve thousand.
Attacking fifteen hundred Trolls with so few would be an
act of desperation.’
‘Our ruse is believable, then,’ Vanion said. ‘Cyrgon and
Zalasta shouldn’t have any reason to suspect a trap.’
They waited. The horses of the knights were restive and grew
more difficult to control as the minutes ticked by.
Then an Atan woman came running back across the frosty
meadow. ‘They’ve started to move, Betuana-Queen!’ she
shouted from about a hundred yards out.
“It worked, then,’ Talen said gleefully.
‘We’ll see,’ Khalad said cautiously. ‘Let’s not start dancing in
the streets just yet.’
The scout came the rest of the way across the meadow to join
them.
‘Tell us what you saw,’ Betuana commanded.
‘The man-beasts are coming toward us, Betuana-Queen,’ the
woman replied. ‘They move singly, some far to the front and
others lagging behind.’
‘Trolls wouldn’t understand the concept of fighting as a unit,’
Ulath told them.
‘Who commands them?’ Betuana asked.
‘Something that is very large and ugly, Betuana-queen.” the
scout reported. ‘The man-beasts around it are taller than
Atan, and they scarcely come as high as its waist. Then
Styrics with it as well – eight, by my count.’
‘Did one of them have silvery hair and beard?’ Sephrenia
asked intently.
‘There were two such. One is thin, and one is fat. The thin
one is close by the big ugly thing.’
‘That one is Zalasta,’ she said in a bleak voice.
‘I’ll take a promise from you now, Sephrenia,’ Vanion said
firmly.
‘You can go whistle for promises right now, Vanion,’ she
replied tartly. She was flexing her fingers in an ominous sort of
way.
‘You were right, Sparhawk-Knight,’ Engessa said with a faint
smile. ‘When we reached Sarsos last summer, you said
Sephrenia was two hundred feet tall. She does seem to grow as
one comes to know her better, doesn’t she? I don’t think I’d care
to trade places with Zalasta right now.’
‘No,’ Sparhawk agreed. ‘That wouldn’t be a good idea.’
‘Will you at least agree to think just a little before you start
grappling with Zalasta?’ Vanion pleaded. ‘For my sake? My heart
stops when you’re in danger.’
She smiled at him. ‘That’s very sweet, Vanion, but I’m not
the one in danger right now.’
Then they heard it. It was a dull, rhythmic thudding of hundreds
of feet striking the earth in unison, and that thudding was
accompanied by a low, brutish grunting. Then the thudding and
grunting suddenly broke off, and a shrill, wailing ululation rose,
fluctuating and piercing the chill air.
‘Kring!’ Ulath barked. ‘Let’s go have a look.’ And the two
galloped out across the frozen meadow.
‘What is it?’ Vanion asked.
“Very bad news,’ Kalten replied tensely. ‘We’ve heard that
noise before. When we were on our way to Zemoch, we came
across some creatures Sephrenia called the “Dawn Men”. They
make Trolls look like tame puppies by comparison.’
‘And the Troll-Gods wouldn’t have any authority over them,’
Sephrenia added. ‘We might have to retreat.’
‘Never!’ Betuana almost shouted. “I won’t run away again not
from anything! I’ve been humiliated too many times already!
My Atans and I will die here if necessary!’
Ulath and Kring came riding back, their faces baffled. ‘They’re
just ordinary Trolls!’ Ulath exclaimed. ‘But they’re stamPing and
grunting and wailing the same way the Dawn-Men did!’
Flute suddenly burst out laughing.
‘What’s so funny?’ Talen demanded.
‘Cyrgon,’ she replied gaily. “I knew he was stupid, but I didn’t
think he was this stupid. He can’t tell the difference between Trolls
and Dawn-Men. He’s forcing the Trolls to behave the way their
ancestors did, and that won’t work with Trolls. All he’s doing is
confusing them. Let’s go out and meet them, Sparhawk. I want
to watch Cyrgon’s face crumble and fall off the front of his head.’
Then she drove her little grass-stained feet into the flanks of
Talen’s horse, obliging the rest of them to follow along behind.
They crested a low hill and reined in. The Trolls were advancing
through the tall grass on a broad front, quite nearly a mile
across, shuffling, stamping their heels, and grunting in unison.
A vast shape which very closely resembled Ghworg, the God of
Kill, shambled along in the center of the brutish throng, beating
on the frozen ground with a huge, iron-bound club.
The monstrous apparition was closely surrounded by a group
of white-robed Styrics. Sparhawk could quite clearly see Zalasta
to Cyrgon’s right.
‘Cyrgon!’ Aphrael called. Her voice was shatteringly loud.
Then she spoke at some length in a language that had only
traces of Styric in it and was shaded around the edges with bits
and pieces of Elenic and Tamul and a half-dozen other languages
as well.
‘What tongue is that?’ Betuana demanded.
“It is the language of the Gods,’ Vanion replied, his voice
carrying that slightly wooden overtone that always overlaid it
when Bhelliom spoke. ‘The Child Goddess doth taunt Cyrgon.’
Vanion seemed to wince slightly. ‘Thou wert perhaps unwise to
expose thy Goddess overmuch to Elenes, Sephrenia,’ Bhelliom
observed. ‘Her capacity for imprecation and insult seemeth me
inappropriate for one so young.’
‘Aphrael is hardly young, Blue Rose,’ she replied.
A faint smile touched Vanion’s lips. ‘Not to thee, perhaps.
Perspective, however, doth color all. To me, thy seemingly
ancient Goddess is scarce more than a babe.’
‘Be nice,’ Aphrael murmured. Then she continued to rail at
the now-enraged Cyrgon.
‘Can you hear Zalasta’s thoughts now, Anarae?’ Kalten asked.
‘Clearly, Sir Knight,’ Xanetia replied.
‘Does he have any suspicion at all about what we’re going to
do?’
‘Nay. He doth believe that victory is within his reach.’
Aphrael stopped in mid-curse. ‘Let’s disabuse him of that right
now,’ she said. ‘Turn loose the Troll-Gods, Sparhawk.’
‘An it please thee, Blue Rose,’ Sparhawk said politely, ‘evict
thine unwanted tenants now.’
‘More than gladly, Anakha,’ Bhelliom replied with great relief.
The Troll-Gods were not surrounded by that azure nimbus
this time. They appeared suddenly and in vividly excruciating
detail. Sparhawk suppressed a wave of revulsion.
‘Go to your children, Ghworg!’ Aphrael commanded in Trollish.
“It is your semblance Cyrgon has stolen, and it is your right
to cause hurt to him for that.’
Ghworg roared his agreement and charged down the hill with
the other Troll-Gods close on his heels.
The counterfeit Ghwerg gaped up the hill at the dreadful
reality descending upon him. And then he screamed in sudden
agony.
‘Does that even happen to Gods?’ Talen asked Flute. ‘Does it
hurt you as much as it hurts humans to have one of your spells
broken?’
‘Even more,’ she almost purred. ‘Cyrgon’s brains are on fire
right now.’
The Trolls were also gaping at their suddenly materialized
Gods. One huge brute not far from the writhing God of the
Cyrgai reached out almost absently, picked up a shrieking Styric,
and pulled off his head. Then he tossed the head aside and
began to eat the still-convulsing body.
The Troll-Gods roared something in unison, and the Trolls all
fell on their faces
Cyrgon writhed, shrieking, and the seven remaining Styrics
collapsed as if they had been cut down. The false shape of
Ghworg shuddered away into nothingness, and Cyrgon himself
suddenly appeared as an amorphous blob of pale, intense light.
Aphrael sneered. ‘That’s Cyrgon for you,’ she noted. ‘He
claims to be too proud to assume a human form. Personally, I
think he’s just too clumsy. If he tried, he’d probably put the head
on upside down or both arms on the same side.’ She shrieked a
few more triumphant insults.
‘Aphrael.’ Sephrenia actually sounded shocked.
‘I’ve been saving those up,’ the Child Goddess apologized.
‘You weren’t really supposed to hear me say them.’
Cyrgon’s fire was fluctuating wildly now, flaring and dimming
as his agony swelled and then diminished.
‘What is Zalasta feeling now?’ Sephrenia eagerly asked
Xanetia.
‘His pain doth go beyond mine ability to describe it,’ the Anarae
replied.
‘Dear, dear sister!’ Sephrenia exulted. ‘You’ve made me haPpier
than you could possibly imagine!’
‘Are you ever going to be able to tame her again?’ Sparhawk
asked Vanion.