The Prodigal Troll (33 page)

Squandral's men chuckled. "Look at the vulture," they said.

Afterward, Sinnglas came over to Maggot and smiled. "You will have your chance, my friend. We will go avenge the deaths tonight. Now you will see what war is really like."

"Good!" Maggot panted.

He was ready to chase down any lion they wanted and destroy it.

They set out in the darkness for a settlement of farms downstream, where Squandral's niece and her family had gone to trade the day they were murdered.

They ran hard, heading south and west, crossing the rivers at fords. Before dawn they came to a clearing surrounded by pines in the shadow of a mountain's steep slope. The men from the different villages kept mostly to themselves, but Sinnglas, Squandral, and Custalo met together with a few others. Sinnglas took Keekyu with him.

Some of the older men slept or rested. Maggot had the wakefulness of night and newness both upon him. So he joined those who prepared themselves. "This cap," he told Pisqueto. "It I cannot wear to war." It distracted him.

Pisqueto shoved the red cloth in the back of Maggot's belt. "But you will have to stay out in front so that we can see it," he said, laughing to himself. Then he tied the eagle feathers into Maggot's braid. They tickled his shoulder when he moved his head at first, but soon he no longer noticed them.

Sinnglas and Keekyu returned. Keekyu made a bow-drawing motion to Maggot. "The invaders asked us to give you a bow before we attack them."

Some of the other men chuckled.

"What?" Maggot had practiced with Keekyu's bow until his thumb was rubbed raw. Though he could shoot far, he had not yet gotten the knack of hitting the target.

Keekyu laughed, then looked at Sinnglas. "I'll tell the others the plan?"

Sinnglas shrugged, and then squatted down beside Maggot and Pisqueto. "Squandral has made a good plan."

"What is it?" Pisqueto asked.

"We'll attack them just after sunrise. A few men from each village will be our reserve. They will stay downstream from the settlement, in case the invaders try to escape that way. I want you with the reserve, Pisqueto. You too, my friend, Maqwet."

"I to be with you," Maggot said firmly. Then thinking of the red cloth in his belt, he added, "Out in front."

"Nor will I stay with the crippled old men and boys," Pisqueto complained.

"It is not just old men and boys," Sinnglas answered. "It is for those who have never fought before, to stay with those who have fought the most to give them wisdom and guidance."

"Will you or Squandral or Custalo be with the reserve?" Pisqueto asked.

"No."

"Heh," Pisqueto said. "But you three have fought the most, haven't you?" He grinned in triumph when Sinnglas looked away.

Maggot stood up, drawing his knife. "I will be with you, my friend, out in front."

The group of reserves took cover alongside the river trail behind mounds of debris-dead branches, uprooted trees. Maggot and Pisqueto went with the main force of men upstream. They passed around a settlement, or small village, its rooflines distinguishable against the sky.

"When will we start to seek the lion's tracks?" Maggot asked, doubting any bigtooth lion would hunt so close to a cluster of houses.

Sinnglas angrily gestured him to silence, while some of the other men glared at him. Pisqueto came up beside Maggot and whispered, "We just passed his dung heap."

Maggot had seen no sign of scat, but he studied the ground closely as they walked on.

With the birds singing for the morning, they divided into two columns. Squandral and Custalo led the main group of more than forty warriors back toward the cluster of fortified farmhouses.

Sinnglas took his eleven men and proceeded down to a stream, to approach from the flank. They hurried silently through the shadows under the woods, the dark shapes reminding Maggot of trolls running back to their caves at sunrise after a night of too much feeding.

Just ahead of them on the trail, a loud crash in the brush was followed by gobblegobblegobble.

Three huge birds burst from the trees, an arrow flying out of the darkness to hit one of the straggling turkeys and pin it to the ground. Its shrill cry accompanied vigorous flapping in a circle as two men ran out of the woods after it. The men dressed like the hunters in the skin caves, their clothes bright blocks of color in the gray light.

Sinnglas whooped, just like he did in the dance, as Keekyu lifted his bow, drew, and shot. His arrow sailed through empty air: the men had already reversed direction and bolted away.

"But-" cried Maggot.

Half a dozen bows twanged as Sinnglas shouted at the men, "Catch them! Quick! Quick!"

Keekyu ran ahead, always looking, with Pisqueto and Maggot at his side. Pisqueto's eyes were wide with excitement. Sinnglas and the other men spread out through the woods. Maggot listened to the crashing footsteps of the men ahead and noticed when the noise stopped. Before he realized what this meant, a bowstring vibrated.

Maggot hurled himself behind a tree, but he saw a silver flash in the air. Keekyu screamed and crumpled over backward, his scalp laid open bare to the white bone of the skull. Blood streamed everywhere, covering his pale, still face.

Pisqueto froze. He took one look at his brother and gulped. Then he spun around and ran away.

Before Maggot could run after him, Sinnglas was screaming. "Attack, attack! Don't let them reach the houses!"

Maggot obeyed.

Branches slapped at his face and arms as Maggot plunged through the trees after the men. The strangers stopped long enough to draw and shoot, then ran again. The shafts flew wild, sailing over Maggot's head to crash in the leaves.

The two men broke into the open, one ahead of the other. Maggot emerged from the woods just behind them. Dawn cast its pale light across the lush grass as they all ran over the meadow beside the stream toward the settlement. Kinnicut, the blacksmith in Damaqua's village, ran past Maggot and flung his warclub. It spun through the air and knocked down the trailing stranger. Kinnicut jumped in the air, trilling his triumph, as the tripped man crawled away on all fours like a beast. Then Sinnglas came up and smashed his warclub into the stranger's head, once, twice. On the second strike, the skull splattered like a fruit.

Maggot stopped.

"Kill him!" Sinnglas shouted, pointing toward the second man. Several men drew their bows, but their comrades who continued the chase were in the way, so they didn't shoot.

Sinnglas dashed after the man. Maggot raced at Sinnglas's heels.

The stranger entered a second, narrower band of trees. Someone shot at him, but the arrow struck wood as he dodged behind the trunks. Maggot realized that the man still ran for the houses, so he angled through the trees and clambered over the small ridge to reach the man first.

Maggot came out of the trees on the edge of fields dug in straight lines like the patterns on the stranger's clothes. A group of houses sat across the fields.

The man rounded the hilltop not twenty feet away, shouting words that Maggot didn't understand. Maggot covered the distance in a few short steps, took the man by the hair, and jerked his head back. The man squirmed, batting at Maggot with the bow in his left hand while his right hand slipped off Maggot's greased body. He looked straight into Maggot's eyes, and said, in Sinnglas's language, "You Wyndan piece of shit."

Maggot plunged his knife into the man's heart and twisted. The man dropped his bow and sagged, but Maggot held him up by the hair. Blood bubbled at his mouth, a single crimson sphere that swelled like the moon and popped.

Sinnglas arrived at Maggot's side. "Over the wall!"

There was no time to think or feel. Maggot dropped the body and joined seven or eight men sprinting in a ragged line across the fields. Someone twisted an ankle and fell down.

Maggot outdistanced them all.

His eyes encompassed everything at once. The strangers had fortified their houses, surrounding them with a fence and filling the spaces in between with a rough wall of logs and wagons. Someone must have warned them of the attack. Flames leapt from a rooftop, lighting the situation. Their shaggy cattle clustered inside, jostling away from the fire, lowing in distress. Squandral's men and Custalo's engaged the strangers on the far side, trading screams and arrows. The bulk of the defenders, a handful of men, were on the far side of the structure; Maggot glimpsed their backs in the flickering light. One-no, two-defended the wall nearest Sinnglas's men.

Maggot hit the wall at a full run and vaulted over it.

He rolled on his shoulder and landed upright on his feet, the way his mother had taught him. His momentum carried him straight into the larger archer, and he struck repeatedly with his fist until the man fell.

Something cut across his back, and he twisted, slashing with his knife, feeling it bite, pulling through. The attacker fell backward, which is when Maggot noticed she was the woman.

He stood paralyzed, like the deer transfixed by the demon.

No, not the woman, but a woman. This woman was smaller, like a boy, and her hair was a lighter shade of brown. But she had the same nose, the same sharp-angled face. She sat propped up where she'd fallen against the wall, grimacing, trying to push a blue wad of intestines back into her stomach. One leg kept kicking hard against the ground while blood spurted out between her legs.

Someone screamed.

Maggot spun. A man charged around the corner of a house aiming a spear at him. Maggot dodged the thrust, blocking the shaft with his knife hand and shoving the man down.

He stood there, dumb, confused, as Sinnglas and the other warriors came over the wall. One of them silenced the woman as others killed the two men. They attacked the defenders from behind, and Squandral and Custalo and all their men came over the barricade on the other side.

Something inside Maggot became the shell of a tortoise or a snail, something very hard. He seemed to himself to be moving slug-slow while everyone around him darted like bats in the sky.

In a matter of moments, the warriors murdered every man, woman, and child. Maggot watched them drag a small child out from under a bed before they killed him. Then they knocked down the fence, driving the cattle into the fields, plundered the bodies, and began to rob the houses.

Maggot staggered back to the wall, tried to climb over it, and fell, weak, on the other side. He stood up, wiping his arm against his mouth to take away the bitter taste of bile that suddenly filled it.

As flames leapt from the remaining rooftops, Maggot ran out across the fields. He wasn't running away. He was only running to find Pisqueto, only running to find himself.