Chương 11

The armor they gave me was chain mail, not leather. Beneath it I wore thick padded clothing, and over it I wore a simple tabard with a rune on the front and back. Tal. My name. They dressed me like a knight and gave me three men with horses to carry the weapons I would need to slay Wek'bah. They were archers, and they would be counting on me to protect them as they shot the troll with flaming arrows. My own weapons would be coated with alchemist's fire, when the time came.

I had been asked which weapons I preferred, and I had been given two short swords. They offered me a horse, but I did not know how to ride, and anyway I would have ridden it into the ground had they let me. My living companions set the pace when we left, and I kept up with their horses effortlessly. They seemed unnerved by that. I did not know why. Six men, six horses, twelve hounds, and one Inalten. That was the party sent to slay the troll.

It took us two days to reach the pass, and the men joked about how they would be legends when they returned. They drank a bit of wine as I stood guard, watching the silence of the night around us and guarding their noise. They kept their own guard, of course, but it was superfluous. The man who took the second shift sat next to me, warming his hands occasionally. I looked down at my own hands. I did not feel cold. Or perhaps cold is all that I ever felt.

Without a heart to beat, without blood to circulate, what good was warmth?

"My cousin was one of the ones you saved," the man informed me, shivering.

"We were worried that she'd die from her burns, but now we're confident she'll survive. She'll have scars. But she'll live, thanks to you." I did not say anything. I continued to stare out into the darkness, which was not so dark to my eyes. I saw the wolves approach us, circle around, then flee when they caught my scent. The guard was completely unaware.

"I just wanted to say thank you for that," the man continued.

"I-when I first heard about you, I was one of the ones who thought we ought to destroy you. To burn you until nothing was left. They say that's the only way to truly destroy you, and so that's what I argued we ought to do. I'm glad, now, that nobody listened to me." An owl hooted in the distance.

"So nothing personal, right?" he said. He laughed.

"I don't know why I'm confessing to you. You don't care, do you?"

"There are many who argue that I should be destroyed," I said simply.

"It does not bother me."

"I suppose having died once, you're less afraid of it," he said. I said nothing. I recalled the void that separated the moment of nothingness with my first memories. No, I was not afraid of that void. Returning to that void would be like going home. What I was now? This journey I had been set on by Vorulsht? I walked it out of simple curiosity, not the fear of it ending. Where it led, I did not know. And I did not particularly care.

It was simple inertia propelling me, with occasional pushes from the living to keep me going as I slowed down. What was I by myself, I wondered. Without the living? I remembered the silence of the cave. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Of the peace. Of the power thrumming through that crystal formation. I could still feel it, the veins of that power in the earth, suffusing everything.

If I had not been removed from that cavern, I would be there still. Centuries might have passed and I wouldn't have cared. What was I without the living? The night came to an end, and the journey resumed. On the third day, we arrived at the pass. The snows were melting, flooding the stream at the bottom of the gorge. Only the north side was passable this time of year, and it would take us directly through the troll's territory. I smelled it the same time the dogs did.

Their response varied from animal to animal; some whined and cowered, others bore their fang. I calmly drew my weapons and pulled out the flasks that contained the alchemists fire. Pouring them carefully on the blades, I did not look behind me as the others dismounted and began their own preparations. Wek'bah the troll jumped from the top of the gorge, landing in our path.

"If you wish to pass, you must—" I launched myself forward before she finished. I was not here to discuss matters. I was here to kill a troll for reasons barely understood. Slashing through her skin, the wound tried to heal, but the burnt flesh prevented it from doing so. She screamed. Her hideous face a mask of anger and pain, she loomed over me, twice my height and then some. I sliced again, again, but my blades were short and she had so much flesh to cut through.

She pulled a fist back to punch me, and then the pack of hounds was on her. Half of the hounds had not obeyed the men and refused to fight, circling nervously, but the others harried her from behind while I fended her off from the front. The men with me ignited their arrows and shot them with unerring accuracy. With a " crack!" her fist connected with my chest, breaking my bones through the armor. I was sent flying into the gorge wall. With a " crack!" I impacted.

One of the extra bottles of alchemist's fire ignited then on my belt and I was engulfed in flame. It mattered not. I healed myself through it as I launched myself at the troll. The dogs began dying as they were struck down by Wek'bah. The furious monster had one of them by the back legs and was using it as a club. I pulled out the final bottle of alchemist's fire I had been entrusted with, pulled the cork, and launched it at the troll.

The liquid that spilled from it got on her grey skin and fur, but more importantly the bottle broke against her skull. The liquid fire blinded her, and she screamed until her lungs were burnt out. She was slow in dying after that. She flailed around blindly for a few minutes, then fell to the ground. She kept trying to breath with lungs that didn't work. I tried to put an end to her by stabbing her in the heart. An arrow struck me in the back. I thought nothing of it. She grabbed hold of me by the neck.

I thought she would throw me again, but instead she pulled me eye level. As we burned together, she mouthed the words.

"You have doomed yourselves." Then the fire burnt her face away, and I was left staring at charred skull. Another arrow struck me in the back. And then another. Wek'bah was dead. I turned to my companions and stepped way from her. Another arrow struck me. They were not aiming for the troll, I realized. The dogs circled me now.

"Apologies, Tal," said the guard whose cousin I had saved.

"It's the lord's orders. You'll be heralded as a hero. A martyr. The people will love your memory. Take solace in their love as you return to the underworld." A betrayal? Another arrow struck me, and then another. Engulfed in flame as I was, I continued to heal myself. The lord wanted me dead. I wondered why. Perhaps I would ask him. Yes, that is what I would do. But to see him again I would have to kill these men and their dogs. Picking my sword out of the troll's heart, I turned toward them. And I got to work.

Less than fifteen minutes after ambushing the troll, the valley was silent, save for the whimpering of the dogs who were still alive. The men had thrown another bottle of alchemist's fire on me, thinking that would do the trick. I healed my flesh faster than the compound burned it away. I waited patiently for my fire to go out. I stripped off my armor, including the parts that were melted into my flesh. I bathed in the stream, then took the clothes from one of the corpses and dressed myself again.

I didn't particularly care for modesty, but the living did. I almost left the valley gorge then, but I stopped when I caught the scent of something living on the wind. Not human. Another troll. Picking up one of the final bottles of alchemist's fire and one of the swords that was still intact, I followed my nose to a cave halfway up the gorge. I found there an grey infant, the size of a hound. It stared up at me with fearful eyes.

"Mama?" it asked. Mother, the page boy had said.

"I will send you to her," I promised. And I kept that promise.