He hoped he would lose consciousness quickly, that the pain wouldn’t be so intense.
He took a deep breath, then blew it all out and set himself to plunge into the water, thinking he would just keep swimming down.
Just as he was about to go, though, he heard a splash that he recognized as an oar dipping into the lake.
“Here! Here!” he yelled, and he began smacking at the fish again with renewed urgency. “Here!”
A fish as long as Cormack was tall leaped up before him, coming for his face, but the agile monk reacted with fury and speed, smashing it in the side of the head with a right cross that turned it aside. He hit it again several times as it thumped onto his raft and rolled into the water.
But now he was in the water, the troll bodies all floating apart. His robes pulled him down as he worked his weary arms furiously to try to tread water. He tilted his head back as far as he could, gasping for breath. He got a mouthful of water instead and felt himself submerging.
A strong hand grabbed his shoulder, though, and hauled him back up. A giant fish brushed against his leg, and he slammed his head as he went up over the side of a boat. Then he was lying on the wood, eyes closed, only semiconscious, and curled defensively. He coughed and felt water pouring from his mouth.
“Well, what d’we got here?” he heard in that distinctive powrie dialect and the typical dwarf voice, which sounded somewhat like a receding wave rattling a beach of small stones.
“Name’s Cormack,” said another, a voice the monk recognized. “Won the cap fair and square.”
“So take the cap and throw the fool back to the Mith trout,” said the first, the last thing Cormack heard.
TWENTY-THREE
Captives
Don’t let him fall,” Brother Jond implored Vaughna as she struggled to keep Bransen marching in the line of prisoners. They knew well what would happen if that occurred, for one of the other prisoners had tumbled from exhaustion and the cold and the thin air earlier that day up high on a mountain pass. The trolls had descended on that poor soul immediately, whipping and kicking, and when the woman hadn’t been able to get up (they prevented anyone from helping her), they had beaten her, laughing at and mocking her all the while, then left her for dead.
“What is wrong with him?” Vaughna asked, for she had never seen anything like Bransen’s awkward, storklike gait.
“He got hit too hard in the head,” Brother Jond replied. It was the eighth time he had answered that same question to Vaughna and to Olconna, whom he was now helping along the march. Olconna had taken a few fairly serious hits, and Jond initially feared that he would not survive. Most of those wounds had proven superficial, though, and Olconna’s growing reputation for toughness had proven well earned. Now, though in pain and needing support, he moved along without a whimper of complaint.
Bransen listened to the conversations very distantly. He had thought to slur out some rudimentary explanation early on in the march, but had forgone the effort, realizing that there was nothing his companions could do. Brother Jond had retrieved the bandanna, but the soul stone was not to be found, and the trolls had stripped the monk of all of his possessions, particularly the magical gemstones.
Crait lay dead back at the scene of the battle. All of the four surviving heroes sent by Dame Gwydre had been hurt, Bransen the least of all, Olconna by far the worst. But without the gemstone, Bransen couldn’t count himself as fortunate. He stayed within himself, focused on his Jhesta Tu training, and forced his chi somewhat in line. He didn’t exhaust the process, though, understanding that there were limits to his concentration and that after a while his stork affliction would win out.
But he had to keep going, had to keep his focus intense enough so that he would keep putting one foot in front of the other. And he and his three remaining companions had to hope that the trolls would make a critical mistake, and in that event, Bransen was ready to fully immerse himself in Jhesta Tu and try to find at least a few moments of effective fighting.
Their hopes for such an error had waned throughout the remainder of that day and long into the night, for this group of jailers proved quite skilled, and the troll numbers overwhelming. At camp, the prisoners were separated into small groups, and every one lay facedown on the cold ground, a spear poised at the back of his or her neck.
Their only hope was Jameston. Only Jameston Sequin could get them out of this, though Bransen had to wonder what in the world a single man might do against the awful power of Badden and his minions. He tried not to think of that, tried not to succumb to the reality that he would never see his beloved Cadayle and Callen again.
The next day the line of prisoners was marched through a long, descending, barren pass overlooking a river of blue-white ice. As they neared the base of that path the ground became more slippery, and no matter how hard he focused or how hard Vaughna tried to help him Bransen fell repeatedly. The first time he thought his long trial would end with the trolls descending upon him to whip him to death. But many of the weary humans were slipping and falling. Unbeknownst to Bransen and the others they were too close to their destination for the trolls to allow any to die.
They moved out of the rocky mountain pass and onto the glacial sheet, and surprisingly, the footing was actually better there and far more consistent than on the ice-speckled mountain trail.
They had trudged on for nearly an hour when a gasp from in front brought all eyes up the slope to the southeast where a large castle appeared as if made completely of ice. Glistening minarets and towers reached up from foreboding bluish, nearly translucent walls. More dread-filled gasps issued throughout the group as they neared, both from the scope and aura of sheer power emanating from the castle and because this was the first time that any of them had actually looked upon a giant.
These were giants, as Jameston had warned, and not simply large humans. Thrice Bransen’s height, the behemoth humanoid creatures mocked his warrior pride. No matter how fine he became with his weapon, no matter how strong he honed his muscles, no matter how fine and precise his reactions, how could he ever hope to do battle against such a behemoth?
Bransen shook his head and mumbled, “N… N… N… No,” throwing the negative and distracting thoughts aside. For before him lay the ultimate challenge, the final pinnacle, perhaps. He had no doubt that this was the abode of Ancient Badden, the key to his freedom, or more likely by far, he now understood, the gateway to the afterlife.
Jameston Sequin had survived for so long in hostile lands because he knew when to run away. He had put six arrows into the air at the beginning of the battle and had scored three hits he knew to be mortal, sending a fourth troll spinning down to the ground in agony.
The frenzy had grown too confused after that, however, with human prisoners and trolls scrambling all over each other, and of course, his companions in the mix. Then had come the reinforcements, and all hope washed away.
Bitterness filling his heart, Jameston had found few options: charge in and die or be captured, or flee. He ran. He took little heart in noting that most of the group was still alive when the prisoner caravan passed beneath his perch a short while later, for he knew their destination.
He watched the second group of trolls moving across soon after and cursed under his breath repeatedly for his foolishness in not at least demanding a wider scouting of the area before the impulsive attack. He couldn’t have stopped the stubborn would-be heroes, but perhaps he could have delayed them!
The scout shadowed that caravan the rest of the day and tried repeatedly to find some way into the troll encampment that night. But this was no novice group, and no openings presented themselves to the skilled hunter. He couldn’t get near to his companions.