"Did enough what? Are you trying to tell me Shamsheer trolls can be that easily distracted by words in a language they've never even heard before—?"
"Not the trolls, Danae. The spirits."
She opened her mouth, closed it again. "If that was supposed to be an explanation, it didn't work. Try again?"
Rubbing the sweat off his forehead, Ravagin glanced skyward. "I just hope there aren't any more of them on their way... Look, you saw just as fast as I did that there was something seriously wrong with these trolls. Way out of their jurisdiction, though they thought they were still there, giving the wrong responses, having to stop and think their way through what should have been a pretty standard challenge and rebuttal session—the whole thing was cockeyed."
"I caught the jurisdiction part, anyway. All of that was wrong?"
"Uh-huh. And then, when they finally attacked, they couldn't seem to handle all of their systems at once—they could shoot but not simultaneously process incoming sensory information, to the point where it took an incredible amount of time for them to even notice that they'd missed me. And for that spell to have distracted them the way it did—" he shook his head. "That was the last bit of proof."
"Proof for what?"
"Proof that you were right. Some of Karyx's spirits have invaded Shamsheer."
An icy chill ran down Danae's back. "You mean... there were spirits controlling the trolls? How in the worlds could they do that?"
Ravagin shook his head, slipping his scorpion glove back onto his belt. "I don't know. But remember that on Karyx, anyway, the spirits are able to interact some with matter, especially on the microscopic level. Maybe that's how they're doing it here."
Danae thought back to the throbbing pain in her side that had been the result of her tangle with the demon in Melentha's mansion. "So instead of finagling synapse chemistry and neuron pathways like they do there, here they're fiddling with microfine circuits?"
"It seems reasonable enough. In fact, compared to what they handle on Karyx, pushing picoamps of current around must be a breeze."
"Oh, God." Danae felt her knees begin to shake, and let herself sink awkwardly to the ground. "You have any idea what this means?"
"In terms of our safety or Shamsheer's?"
"Either. Both."
"It's a hell of a mess for both of us." Ravagin took a deep breath. "Look, before we go looking for a place to give up in, let's see if there's a bright side we can look at. One: we don't know how many spirits are actually here—and if there're only a few of them we'll have a pretty good chance of getting through their cordon. Shamsheer is a mighty big place for two people to lose themselves in.
"Except that we eventually have to get to the other Tunnel."
"Yes, well, we'll cross that one when we get to it. And second: it's clear that these spirits, at least, were way in over their heads on this one. You and I and a dozen more shouldn't have been able to handle even one troll, let alone two. But apparently there're so many separate systems the spirits couldn't keep control of all of them. Which is what eventually tripped them up—they got sloppy and let the trolls realize where they were, which in turn tripped the deadman switch."
Danae looked down at the motionless trolls. "The what?"
"We call it the deadman switch. It prevents people from stealing trolls and transporting them out of their home Protectorate for illegal purposes. Basically puts them into a shutdown mode once they're a certain distance outside their boundaries. Once activated, it supposedly can't be lifted except back at their original castle and by their castle-lord."
"Not even by something inside with the circuitry?"
"Yeah. Well..." Ravagin looked down at the trolls and grimaced. "That is a point. Let's not hang around to find out. You as good with a crossbow as you are with a throwing knife?"
"I've never used a crossbow, but I'm pretty good with normal projectile guns. Hart made me learn all this stuff when I was younger."
"Good for him." Reaching down, Ravagin pried the crossbow pistol from the troll's grip and then collected both sets of spare bolts. "Take one of the swords, too," he said, handing the weapons to her.
"I don't think we should take the time to go hunt for our daggers, if you don't mind. Come on—let's go."
"Wait a second," Danae growled as a horrible thought suddenly hit her. "You mean you knew they wouldn't be able to shoot straight and you still threw that dagger at me?"
He turned back, frowning. "I threw it to miss you. Didn't you notice?"
"No, I did not notice," she said stiffly. "And I'd appreciate it if next time you'd try and find a safer way to handle things."
"I'll do what I can. Come on; we'll try for the Darcane Forest way house, about ten kilometers due south."
She blinked. "We're going on foot? With a perfectly good sky-plane right over there?"
"You mean the sky-plane that brought the bewitched trolls here?" he asked pointedly.
"Yes, I mean—oh." Danae glanced back at the sky-plane, licked her lips. "Yeah. Okay; on foot it is."
"And stick close to me," he added over his shoulder as he started off toward the edge of the clearing.
"A few of the forest's predators—not many, but a few—do hunt during the day."
Great. Gritting her teeth, Danae hefted the crossbow and followed.
Chapter 34
Two hours later, after struggling their way through perhaps a kilometer of the forest, Ravagin finally called it quits.
"This isn't going to work," he panted as he sank down beside Danae against a thick-boled tree and let his sap-stained sword sag to the ground between his feet.
"No argument from me," Danae sighed, her half-closed eyes showing slits of white as she kicked mechanically at the green frond wrapped loosely around her leg. "What are these vine things, anyway?"
"Berands fronds," he told her, slashing carefully at the offending plant. "They catch and eat the large slug-like things that move around under the dead leaves. They're not really strong enough to be dangerous to people, but normal walking pace is just slow enough for them to have time to react. If we were sitting still or riding horses there'd be no problem."
"I don't suppose there's any chance of that? Sitting still, I mean, and maybe getting in a couple of hours of sleep while we're at it?"
"Unfortunately, there are lots of things in the forest more dangerous than Berands fronds," he said, fumbling out his prayer stick and looking up. Overhead, the nearly-solid forest canopy showed a small patch of blue sky; just wide enough, he estimated, to let a sky-plane through. "But you're right; we can't keep this up any longer. I pray thee, deliver unto me a sky-plane."
Danae pried her eyes open. "I thought you didn't want to use sky-planes."
"I don't," he admitted. "But it looks like we either risk it or we lie down and die here."
Danae nodded and closed her eyes again. No argument on that one, either, Ravagin thought, looking down at her. She must really be tired. Laying his sword down, he ground his knuckles into his eyes.
One of them ought to stay awake until the transport came...
The swish of dead leaves and undergrowth as the sky-plane came to a soft landing in front of them startled him out of his light doze. Shaking his head to clear his eyes, he snatched up his sword and looked quickly around. No trolls, no predators. They'd been lucky. "Come on, Danae," he grunted, shaking her arm. "Time to go."
"Wha—? Oh. Already?"
"Yeah. Come on—a little effort now and you can be in a real bed in ten minutes."