Domes of Fire

Sparhawk and the others moved off to the sides of the narrow cut, and Khalad released the bow by cutting the rope that held it drawn. The javelin shot forward with a sharp whistling sound and buried itself deep into a tree a good hundred yards down the canyon.

‘I’m going to like that boy,’ Kalten smiled. ‘He’s almost as good at this sort of thing as his father was.’

‘The family shows a lot of promise,’ Sparhawk agreed. ‘Let’s position our archers so that they have a clear shot at that gap.’

‘Right,’ Kalten agreed. ‘What then?’

‘Then we wait.’

‘That’s the part I hate the most. Why don’t we grab something to eat? Just to pass the time, of course.’

‘Of course.’

The storm which had been building to the east all morning was closer now, the clouds purplish-black and seething. There were flickers of lightning deep inside the cloud bank, and the thunder rolled from horizon to horizon, shaking the ground with every peal.

They waited. The air was dead calm and sultry and the knights were sweating uncomfortably in their armour.

‘Can we think of anything else?’ Tynian asked.

‘I’ve contrived a few rudimentary catapults,’ Bevier replied. ‘They’re hardly more than bent saplings, so they won’t throw very big rocks, and their range is limited.’

‘I’ll take all the help I can get when it comes to fighting Trolls,’ Ulath told him. ‘Every one of them we knock down before they get to us is one less we’ll have to fight.’

‘Dear God!’ Tynian exclaimed.

‘What?’ Kalten demanded with a certain alarm.

‘I think I just saw one of them back at the edge of the forest. Are they all that big?’

‘Nine feet or so tall?’ Ulath asked quite casually.

‘At least.’

‘That’s fairly standard for a Troll, and they weigh between thirty-five and fifty stone.’

‘You’re not serious!’ Kalten said incredulously.

‘Wait just a bit and you’ll be able to weigh one for yourself.’ Ulath looked around at them. ‘Trolls are hard to kill,’ he cautioned. ‘Their hides are very tough, and their skull-bones are almost a half-inch thick. They can take a lot of punishment when they’re excited. If we get in close, try to maim them. You can’t really count on clean kills with Trolls, so every arm you chop off is one less the Troll can grab you with.’

‘Will they have weapons of any kind?’ Kalten asked.

‘Clubs are about all. They aren’t good with spears. Their arms aren’t hooked on right for jabbing.’

‘That’s something, anyway.’

‘Not very much,’ Tynian told him.

They waited as the thunder moved ponderously toward them.

They saw several more Trolls at the edge of the forest in the next ten minutes, and the bellowing roars of those scouts were obviously summoning the rest of the pack. The only Troll Sparhawk had ever seen before had been Ghwerig, and Ghwerig had been dwarfed and grossly deformed. He quickly began to revise his assessment of the creatures. They were, as Ulath had stated, about nine feet tall, and they were covered with dark-brown, shaggy fur. Their arms were very long, and their huge hands hung below their knees. Their faces were brutish, with heavy brow-ridges, muzzle-like mouths and protruding fangs. Their eyes were small, deep-set and they burned with a dreadful hunger. They slouched along at the edge of the forest, not really trying to conceal themselves, and Sparhawk clearly saw that their long arms played a significant part in their locomotion, sometimes serving as an additional leg and sometimes grasping trees to help pull themselves along. Their movements were flowing, even graceful, and bespoke an enormous agility.

‘Are we more or less ready?’ Ulath asked them.

‘I could stand to wait a little longer,’ Kalten replied.

‘How long?’

‘Forty or fifty years sounds about right to me. What did you have in mind?’

‘I’ve seen about fifteen different individuals,’ the big Thalesian noted. ‘They’re coming out one by one to have a look, and that means that they’re all more or less gathered just back under the trees. I thought I’d insult them for a while. When a Troll gets angry, he doesn’t really think. Of course Trolls don’t have very much to think with in the first place. I’d like to provoke them into an ill-considered attack if possible. If I really insult them, they’ll scream and howl and then come rushing out of those woods foaming at the mouths. They’ll be easy targets for the bowmen at that point, and if a few of them get through, we can charge them with our horses and the lances. We should be able to kill quite a few of them before they come to their senses. I’d really like to whittle down their numbers, and enraged Trolls make easy targets.’

‘Do you think we might be able to kill enough of them to frighten the rest away?’ Kalten asked.

‘I wouldn’t count on it, but anything’s possible, I suppose. I’d have sworn that you couldn’t get a hundred Trolls to even walk in the same direction at the same time, so the situation here’s completely new to me.’

‘Let me talk with the others before we precipitate anything,’ Sparhawk told him. He turned and walked back to where the knights and the Peloi waited with their horses. Vanion stood with Stragen, Engessa and Kring. ‘We’re about ready to start,’ Sparhawk told them.

‘Did you plan to invite the Trolls?’ Stragen asked him. ‘Or are we going to begin without them?’

‘Ulath’s going to see if he can provoke them into something rash,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘The stakes should slow them down enough so that our archers can work on them. We really want to thin them out a bit. If they manage to break through, we’ll charge them with lances.’ He looked at Kring. ‘I’m not trying to insult you, Domi, but could you hold back a bit? Ulath tells us that Trolls take a lot of killing. It’s a dirty business, but somebody’s going to have to come along after we charge and kill the wounded.’

Kring’s face clearly registered his distaste. ‘We’ll do it, friend Sparhawk,’ he agreed finally, ‘but only out of friendship.’

‘I appreciate that, Kring. As soon as Ulath enrages them enough to get them moving, those of us at the barricade will come back and get on our horses to join the charge. Oh, one thing – just because a Troll has a broken-off lance sticking out of him doesn’t mean that he’s out of action. Let’s stick a few more in each one then – just to be on the safe side. I’ll go advise the ladies that we’re about to start, and then we’ll get on with it.’