The Crimson League (The Herezoth Trilogy) (54 page)

“If something happens to my boys, I’ll kill you. I don’t care what you are. I’ll hunt you in your sleep, understand?”

Teena’s voice lost what remained of its usual sugary pitch. “Let me fetch Vane,” she said. She marched to the bedrooms with a huff, returning seconds later with Laskenay’s son in her arms, the tot all energy, excited at the thought of playing somewhere new before bedtime.

445

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The Troll Assault

By the time Kora moved the children and elderly to Wheatfield, and transferred the weapons at Wheatfield to the inn, Hayden had led, by the footbridge, some twenty-five men to Teena’s. Four wore uniforms, but not the elite guard’s. Fifteen came from the village militia, and were trained to use swords and bows. The rest carried scythes that had only attacked wheat. Dusk was twenty minutes off, maybe thirty; to Kora’s surprise, Lanokas let Neslan take charge.

“Catch them off-guard, that’s the key. They can’t suspect we’re waiting. The day’s too nice not to open at least one window. I need volunteers, militiamen, to stay out in the parlor around tables, with cards and ale you’ll
pretend
to be drinking. Hide your weapons, but keep them close.”

Nine militiamen scattered themselves through the parlor. Everyone else gathered behind closed doors, in the kitchen and hall. Kora headed for the latter, dragging a sword, Lanokas at her heels. They took their places at the back of the group, and though Neslan had counseled silence, Lanokas whispered, “If things go poorly, get Teena away.”

“I’ll try. How many do you think they’ll be?”

“The trolls? I haven’t the vaguest notion. That’s why I’m telling you….”

“I heard the first time.”

The wait was unbearable. Kora tried to plan ahead, to formulate some course of action, but she had no clue what to expect, and the adrenaline coursing through her body made thinking difficult. She opted against invisibility, since the only people blind to her would be allies who otherwise could aid her. If she needed aid. Would she need aid? She had never fought hand to hand, had always had her magic.

Smashing glass overpowered the hum of human voices from the parlor, and Kora jumped. One parlor window burst in pieces, and then a second, a third…. Pikebash had arrived. The men at the head of Kora’s group poured into the inn’s main room.

Militia archers, Hayden with them, had already overturned tables to make barricades. Teena joined a group near the front door and was shooting not expertly, but well enough. All in all, the humans’ arrows killed three or four trolls right away, though five more, with swords, climbed through the broken windows, the first making to strike an untrained local. A thought hit Kora, a way to utilize her spells.

“
Adarg Reflayha
!”

Her silver shield blocked the blade. The troll swung an arm through the barrier, but Kora had given the man time to dive behind one of the tables. Undaunted, the troll charged the sorceress until, six feet away, an arrow to the back made him trip. “I got you covered!” Hayden yelled.

Kora continued casting spells against weapons, stripping trolls of their swords with
Mudar
. Lanokas followed her example with his telekinesis. Neslan fought in the center of the room, directing those on foot to band together, and they did, sorceress, prince, soldiers, and citizens. Kora evoked another shield just in the knick of time, and cured a militiaman’s wound as a stab to the chest sent him tumbling. Still, the trolls kept coming. Four of them remained in the parlor.

Then came more breaking glass: from the kitchen, from the bedrooms. Lanokas barked at Kora, “Behind a table!” He yelled to Hayden, “Cover those kitchen doors!”

Kora slid in position as directed, while the sound of rushing feet, the stench of troll and blood, made her lightheaded. To guess, at least twenty of Pikebash’s troops were coming from the hall. “Don’t shoot just yet,” Kora told the archers. “Cover the kitchen. The kitchen!” Some were aiming at the corridor. Dear God, she hoped Teena would forgive her….

“GET AWAY FROM THE HALL!” Kora yelled to the inn’s defenders. The masses drawing closer were making the floor shake. Before the trolls knocked the door from its hinges, Kora pulverized it and its wall with an explosion in the direction of the assailants; the blast collapsed the bedroom wing with a stifling cloud of dust and dozens of throaty yells, all from Pikebash’s army.

The contingent in the kitchen was not nearly as large, maybe ten, four of whom fell in the doorway at the hands (or bows) of the militia. The parlor was littered with bodies, some human, all limiting the mobility of those left standing. That just made the trolls easier targets for the archers. Kora went back to evoking shields and healing what wounds she could see on fallen men. Lanokas stripped swords via magic. When Pikebash tore through the kitchen door with a growl and his blade held high, Lanokas tore it from his grasp, caught it, and threw it back in the air, running the assault’s mastermind clear through at the same time three arrows struck the troll’s upper chest. Pikebash never had time to glance for a replacement blade.

Rankush had somehow arranged to enter last. He peered around the door, then entered with his hands above his head. “Hold your fire!” Lanokas ordered. Too late: two militia archers had already released arrows. Kora was healing a man sliced with his own scythe; she looked up to see the second projectile hit its mark, straight through the heart. Rankush tumbled on top of his master.

“No,” Kora moaned. “No!”

“No prisoners,” said the first archer. Lanokas grabbed him by the shirt.

“THAT WAS OUR INFORMANT!”

“How was I to know?”

“I said to hold fire!”

Kora, willing herself not to vomit, moved as quickly as she could to Rankush without trampling or tripping on corpses, which was no simple feat, as the corpses were three or four deep in some places. She tried to save him, but the aim had been perfect, death instant. She knelt to shut his eyes, her own streaming at the stench that drowned the room, and felt a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s best like this,” said Neslan. “Where could he go? He couldn’t return to his tribe.”

“It’s never best to die like that. It’s just not right.” Kora swept her fingers down the troll’s eyelids. Neslan helped her to her feet.

“You can’t do anything for him. Come on, there are people you can help.”

Kora turned around and saw a human arm sticking out from a pile of trolls. She clutched her chest. “Neslan….”

Neslan tugged at the first troll’s arm, but Kora stopped him and used
Mudar
to launch corpses through the window. The noble grabbed the man’s wrist as she worked. “He’s alive. The pulse is weak, but it’s there. You want to hurry.” The human, it turned out, was the first man she had healed, a militiaman with a formerly gashed chest and blood-soaked tunic. He moaned faintly as he tried to stretch a leg.

“Water,” said Neslan. “We need water.”

Teena came running up. “Why were there so many? So many of them? This was supposed to be a sneak attack!”

Neslan said, “They converged here when they realized we were fighting back.”

“I’m so sorry, Teena,” said Kora.

The innkeeper’s voice shook. “Don’t be.”

“Water,” said Neslan.

Teena said, “I’m on it. There’s a well out back.”

Kora returned to the militiaman on the floor. He had a number of broken bones, mainly his limbs and ribs. She mended them, and Neslan helped him sit up. He seemed to have no major internal damage.

“I’ll stay with him,” said Neslan. “You move on.”

The next man Kora found was the farmer who had confronted the stubbled father of two before the attack. His straw hat still sat perched on his head. His rival in life guarded his dignity in death, and he told her, “You couldn’t save him, but you sure saved the rest of us. Forgive my threats before.”

“Of course I’ll forgive…. Did he have a family? I hope he didn’t leave….”

“He had a wife,” said Gant. “She died two years ago. They were childless.”

The minutes passed, and more. Kora kept healing wounds and broken bones, tossing troll corpses through the windows. All in all, six men had died. Not counting those crushed in the hall, the defenders had killed fifty enemies.

When no one was left who needed her attention, Kora walked outside. The stench of the trolls was little weaker there, but at least there were no pools of blood to stare at or to step in, which she had done many times in the parlor. With a hearty sigh, Kora fell back against Teena’s barn. She watched the men build a bonfire to cremate the trolls, until, in the darkness, a figure materialized maybe twenty feet away.

“Laskenay,” Kora called to her. Laskenay stopped short and joined Kora. “Is it over?” she asked. “Am I needed?”

“It’s over. There’s nothing we can really do here, I’m just too fatigued to move. And the four of us, we’re fine,” Kora added, before Laskenay could ask. “Teena too. Go back to Wheatfield, to your son.”

Laskenay transported away. A few minutes later, a carriage drew up. Curious, and rested to some degree, Kora turned invisible and crept toward the fire that by now had begun to release a put
rid odor of burning flesh.

T
he mayor had arrived. Jonson Peare stepped down and rushed, as quickly as his bulk would allow, to the group of men cremating trolls. He coughed as he went, his nose contracted in revulsion.

“What in heaven’s name is this? Are the stories true? Gracious Giver!”

“What does it look like?” chided one of the soldiers. All four of them were present.

Lanokas described the assault. He mentioned Kora, as he could not omit her before an audience who knew the truth, and the mayor, his face half-lit by the pyre, seemed confused by the esteem in which Lanokas clearly held her. His expression, in fact, looked faintly tortured.

He asked, “These trolls came from the mountains?”

Lanokas eyed him warily. “I don’t see how that matters. But yes.”

The mayor just about had an aneurism. “How it matters? Of course it matters! I’m going to stamp out every last one of them!”

“That was their aim, to have us wipe out a faction that oppresses them. I personally spoke with their informant. Every creature who conspired against us has been killed, that’s fact.”

“Someone has to pay for this!”

“The guilty have. You can’t engage in war, Mayor. The results, the damage, would be catastrophic. This—” Lanokas jabbed a hand toward what remained of the inn—“this pales in comparison. The troll population could be fifty times that of Fontferry. We just don’t know.”

“And who the hell are you to give me orders? You’re not even a citizen of my town!”

Lanokas removed a palm-sized medallion from his pocket and tossed it to the mayor. Kora could not make out the emblem, but it must have been the royal family’s crest, for Peare’s eyes darted between the round piece of metal in his hands and the man who had thrown it. He stammered stupidly, began to speak and stopped short at a warning glare from the prince.

“I’ll order no assault,” Peare said, albeit grudgingly. He thrust the medallion back to Lanokas.

“Wait just a minute,” said the soldier who had spoken before. He forced his way to the prince; Kora’s abdomen clenched up. “Wait just a minute, what is this? What did you show him?” He pulled Lanokas forward by the tunic, studying him in the moonlight. All of a sudden, hand trembling, he released the fistful of fabric he held.

“Rexson Phinnean.” He dropped to one knee, from which Lanokas hastened to lift him. The others started murmuring.

“How do you know me?”

“I’ve been eight years in the army. I went down to Podrar in my third, to receive recognition from the king, a local service award. My immediate commander chose me from the regime
nt. T
here were fifty recipients in all, from throughout the kingdom. I sat across from you at the banquet.”

A slight pull formed at the corner of the royal’s lip. “I see.”

“You escaped? During the coup?”

“Clearly.”

“To start the Crimson League. If I’d known you were alive, Your Majesty…. Let me join you.”

“Let us all,” said another of the uniforms. “We’ll fight with you, and more of us.”

“Why should I trust you?” asked Lanokas.

A third soldier responded. “If we supported Zalski, we’d arrest you right now. We outnumber you, and with all due respect, God knows we could use the fruits of the sorcerer’s gratitude. Do you think my pantry’s full? I have a gaggle of nieces and nephews to feed, a gaggle.”

Lanokas motioned the soldiers to follow. He led them, and seven militiamen, in Kora’s direction. “You want to join me? Then meet me in twelve days outside the old Wheatfield Estate. Recruit others if you must, if you can, but keep in mind discretion is a virtue. A saving one. Bring no one who isn’t trained to use arms. Am I clear?”

Despite her aching muscles, her empty stomach, despite the nausea that had started at the sight (and stench) of the first troll and never quite subsided, Kora smiled. She smiled and backed silently out of earshot. Then she transported to the river, where her soap was still lying in the spot where she had dropped it. She washed before returning to Wheatfield; she could not stand for another minute to think how many dead creatures had blood clinging to her and her clothing.

Bennie and the two older boys, Gant’s sons, were asleep in the loft. Below them Valkin, or Vane, whichever his name was, lay curled in his mother’s lap. Laskenay was stroking his hair. She seemed unable to tear her eyes from him, gave no sign that she noted Kora’s presence except to whisper when Kora drew near, “He does look like his father. Exactly like him.”