Vell knew he shouldn't finish the fight too swiftly. Though his sense of reasoning was weakened in his state, he had no intention of drawing the death blow yet. He was enjoying himself. When Vell shifted his attention to the other troll, staring up into the green-gray face topped with a wiry shock of black hair, he saw something he never would have suspected: fear.
The ground trembled around Vell as he walked. So it was with the beast shamans of his tribe when they called on the powers of the Thunderbeast and grew armor of scales.
Vell commanded the tremors to cease, to see if they would. And they did.
Hopping off his downed victim, Vell strode toward the troll slowly and it stepped backward, watching him intently and bracing for the attack. Armed with nothing but his own scaly strength, Vell plunged forward toward the troll's middle, delivering a forceful punch. The troll withstood the blow and struggled with Vell, raking its claws through his tribal robes, ripping them to find any skin beneath not protected by those thick scales. Finding none, the troll brought its fist to the side of Vell's head. The blow echoed like thunder through his skull and sent him flying against a fragile tree nearby. The trunk cracked behind him as the full brunt of his weight struck. The tree toppled into the clearing with a mighty noise.
The first troll's regenerative powers worked to knit its shattered bones together, and the monster rose to confront Vell again. With his feet against the stump of the broken tree, Vell wrapped his arms around the fallen trunk and spun it in a circle, its branches breaking off as it struck other trees. This brought complaint from the treetops above, and even in his rage, he thought of Lanaal in bird form, likely dislodged from her perch.
Facing the two trolls, his arms still around the trunk, Vell used it as a caber, hurling it full on against the trolls. It struck them both in the midsection, knocking them both backward. Like a great pin it rolled, over their chests and faces, stripping its bark on their rough skin. And like an engine of destruction, Vell was on them, tearing into their bodies with foot and fist.
A high-pitched trill sounded above him, and Vell was partly drawn out of his blood fury to remember what he was here to do. Standing tall and straight, he summoned the heart of his courage, not the courage that compelled him to fight monsters, but that which let him look into the most frightening things lurking inside him. He clapped his eyes shut and searched his depths for the will to leave his body behind and fully accept the scales' embrace.
Vell's throat went dry and his mouth filled with the acrid taste of growing fear. Troll breath washed upon him, but he paid it no mind; the danger would make it easier, he decided. The beast within must emerge—this was life or death, just as it was when Sungar's Camp was under siege. His blood coursed faster and thicker through his veins, his pulse throbbed in his neck like a drum beat, but the beast stayed sleeping. Vell's mood disintegrated and his energy with it, and when he looked down at his hands they were pink flesh, the scales retreating as suddenly as they had come.
And two enraged trolls were bearing down on him.
A sword fell from above, landing with a thud at his feet. Vell reached down and grasped its hilt. It was an elegantly curved elven blade, thinner and lighter than he had ever used, but it cut deep as he sliced a neat slash through a troll's neck—blood poured down its bare green chest. With a cry and a rush of air, a gigantic falcon swooped down next to him, tearing at the other troll's face, claiming both of its eyes with its sharp talons. Blind and howling, the troll batted at the bird and stumbled through the wood, bashing into trees as Lanaal circled and occasionally dived to strike again.
How long has it been since I fought as myself? Vell wondered. He felt good as he tore into the troll again and again, moving quickly to avoid its blows. A glorious swell filled his senses, and his heart awakened to barbarian joy. The troll clawed at his arm and wounded him, and he welcomed this too, the human pain and the feel of blood trickling down his body. To defeat the troll without his powers? A greater achievement by any account, he decided, slicing through his foe's leg and sending it toppling to the ground.
At last, he drew a small vial from a pocket inside his deerskin robes, also a gift from Lanaal. He uncorked it and emptied the contents onto the troll's ugly features.
The liquid hissed and bubbled down the troll's face, trickling off its chin onto its chest. It instinctively tried to soothe its wounds by wiping at them, but this only burned its hands as well. Its skin melted on its face, leaving gruesome black-green flesh showing underneath. Its features damaged by the acid and far beyond regeneration, the troll stopped struggling and collapsed on the forest floor.
Spinning around to find the other troll, Vell discovered that Lanaal had transformed back into an elf to finish off the lumbering monster. From her robes she drew a few darts and—with strength surprising for her thin form—drove them into vital places on the troll's body. Each of them leaked acid that seeped into its body. Its agonized cries were deafening as it melted from within.
Lanaal walked over to Vell. "Vell," she said. "By the Winged Mother, what went wrong?"
But Vell couldn't stop smiling. "I haven't felt this good in a long time. That was invigorating, fighting with my own body, my own skills. With the Thunderbeasts I rarely face foes except as part of a horde. I had forgotten the joy of it." He looked down at the demolished troll. "My kill, not the Thunderbeast's."
Lanaal frowned. "You tried to turn into the behemoth," she said, "but you lost the partial transformation that you had already achieved. How did this happen?"
"I think it rejected me," said Vell. "Whatever's inside me did not care to rear its head. Perhaps it did not deem the situation serious enough."
"Or perhaps you did not call it properly," Lanaal said. "Not seriously enough. You talk as if it's something else. You need to think differently. Acknowledge that it is another side of Vell."
"Are you in my head, elf?" asked Vell. "Do you know what I feel? Keirkrad, Kellin, Sungar, you, and everyone else think they know better than me. But who among you looks through my eyes?" He clenched his fist in anger—not the barbarian rage that he could sate with violence, but something much more complex and difficult to drive off.
"So you consider this experience a failure," said Lanaal.
"No," Vell smiled. "My eyes are clearer now. I tasted battle and felt alive again. No thanks to the enemy inside."
"It's not an enemy, Vell!" Lanaal protested. "Just a resource. A powerful one for good or ill—it will destroy you if you don't make it obey you."
"It's a demon," Vell proclaimed. "One I must strive to cast out."
Lanaal breathed heavily, her bronze-tinged face streaked with redness. "It may not be possible to remove it, Vell," she warned.
"I will strive nevertheless," Vell promised. "Thank you for helping me, Lanaal. I hope I can still call you my friend."
"Have no fear," she whispered. Her smile was filled with concern. "I will help however I can. But if you are seeking answers to your puzzle, I don't know if I can help you any further."
"There may be other possibilities," said Vell. "Rask mentioned something about the Fountains of Memory."
CHAPTER 10
Sprites fell like hostile rain. The Antiquarians, Leng, Ardeth, and Gan held their ground against waves and waves of them. The sprites were joined by grigs playing their dreadful fiddles, gossamer-winged pixies, and even some of the seldom-seen nixies. The fey climbed the trees, dived down on the party below, and launched their arrows. The battlefield rang with the grigs' discordant music.
"If we were to surrender," Ardeth shouted through the cacophony, "do you suppose they'd stop playing?"