Morningstar

CHAPTER THREE

I see that you are quizzical, my ghostly friend. How, you wonder, does the laughter of children in such circumstances denote evil? Well, think on this… is it not comforting to believe that all acts of murder and malice are committed by brutes with no souls? Worshippers of Unclean Powers?

But how dispiriting to see a group of men coming home from a day of toil, ready to play for an hour with their children, to hold their wives close, to sit at their hearth-fires, when their work has been the foul slaughter of innocent travelers. You take my point? Evil is at its most vile when it is practised by ordinary men.

We can excuse a demon who stalks the night seeking blood. It is his nature, he was created for just such a purpose. But not a man who by day commits acts of murder and by night returns home to be a good, loving husband and father. For that is evil of a monstrous kind, and casts doubts upon us all.

But I am running ahead of myself. Where was I? Ah, yes, the village by the lake. I had watched the whore dance, and I had seen the return of the village men. And now, as the winter sunlight faded, I was standing outside the hut staring out over the cold lake.

An old woman came walking across the mud-flats. She was tall and thin, her bony body covered with a long woollen gown, her shoulders wrapped in a plaid shawl. Upon her head was a leather cap, with long ear-pieces tied with thongs beneath her chin. She was carrying a sack and she walked with the long strides of a man. I took her to be more than seventy years old.

‘Do you not bow in the presence of a lady, Owen Odell?’ she asked, stopping before me.

I was shocked and did not move for a moment; then good manners reasserted themselves. ‘My apologies,’ I said, extending my left leg and bowing low, sweeping my left arm out in a graceful half-circle. ‘Have we met before?’

‘Perhaps,’ she answered, smiling. Her face was lined, but good high cheekbones prevented the skin from sagging. Her lips were thin and her eyes, deep-set beneath shaggy brows, were bright blue. Forty years before she must have been a handsome woman. I thought.

‘Indeed I was,’ she said brightly. ‘Thank you for looking beyond the crone and seeing the true Megan.’

‘You are a magicker then?’

‘Of sorts,’ she agreed, walking past me to her hut.

Jarek was asleep on the bed. Megan carried her sack to the rear of the room, tipping the contents on to a wide table. All kinds of leaves and roots had been gathered, and these she began to separate into small mounds. I moved behind her, looking down at the first mound. I recognized the flowers instantly as Eyebright, downy leaves with white petals tinged with violet and with a yellow spot at the centre of the bloom.

‘You are a herbalist also, madam?’ I enquired.

‘Aye,’ she answered. ‘And doctor, meat-curer, midwife. You know this plant?’

‘My nurse used to make an infusion of its leaves for winter colds,’ I told her.

‘It is also good for preventing infection in wounds,’ she said, ‘and for relieving swollen eyes.’

I cast my eyes over the other plants. There was wild Thyme, Figwort, Dove’s Foot, Woundwort and Sanicle, and several others I could not recognize.

‘Your magick is strong, Megan,’ I said.

‘There is no magick in gathering plants,’ she muttered.

‘Oh, but there is when it is winter and none of them grow. You have a spell-garden somewhere and your enchantment works there even while you sleep.’

‘You have a long tongue, Owen Odell,’ she said, a short curved blade hissing from the leather scabbard at her waist, ‘and I have a sharp knife. Be advised.’ I looked into her eyes. ‘An empty threat, madam,’ I told her, keeping my voice low.

‘How would you know?’ she asked. ‘You cannot read my thoughts.’

‘No, but I like you, and that is purely on instinct. My magick may not be strong, but my instincts usually are.’ She nodded and her eyes lost their coldness. Smiling she slipped the skinning-knife back into its sheath.

‘Aye, sometimes instincts are more reliable than magick. Not often, mind! Now make yourself useful and build up the fire. Then there are logs to be cut. You will find an axe in the lean-to behind the house. After that, you can help me prepare the hanging birds.’

I learned something that evening: physical labour can be immensely satisfying to the soul. There was a stack of logs, sawn into rounds of roughly two feet in length. They were of various thicknesses and the wood was beech, the bark silvery and coarse but the inner bright and the colour of fresh cream. The axe was old and heavy, with a curved handle polished by years of use. I placed a log upon a wide slab of wood and slashed at it, missing by several inches. The axe-blade thudded into the slab beneath, jarring my arms and shoulders. More carefully I lifted it again, bringing it down into the centre of the log, which split pleasingly.

As I have said I was not a small man, though I had little muscle. I was tall and bony, but my shoulders were naturally broad, my arms long and my balance good. It was a matter of a few minutes before I was swinging the axe like a veteran woodsman, and my woodpile grew.

I worked for almost an hour in the moonlight, stopping only when my fingers became too sore to hold to the handle. There was a deep ache in my lower back, but it was more than matched by the pride I felt in my labour.

For the first time in my life I had laboured for my supper, working with my hands, and the flames of tonight’s fire, the warmth I would know, would be the result of my own efforts. I laid the axe against the lean-to and began to stack the chunks I had cut.

Megan walked out into the night and nodded as she saw all that I had done. ‘Never leave an axe like that,’ she said. The blade will rust.’

‘Shall I bring it inside?’

She laughed then. ‘No, young fool, leave it embedded in a log. It will keep the blade sharp.’

She waited as I stacked the firewood, then bade me follow her to a small hut at the rear of the building. Even with the winter wind blowing the stench was great as she opened the door. There were some twenty geese, seven turkeys and more than a dozen hares hanging there. I cast a swift spell and the aroma of lavender filled my nostrils.

‘Have you ever prepared a goose?’ she asked.

‘For what?’ I answered, forcing a smile.

‘I thought not. Nobleman, are you? Servants to run your errands, build your fires, heat your bed? Well, you will learn much here, master bard.’

Stepping forward, she lifted a dead goose from a hook and pushed it into my arms. The head and neck flopped down against my right thigh. ‘First pluck the bird,’ she said. ‘Then I will show you how to prepare it.’

‘It is not a skill I wish to learn,’ I pointed out.

‘It is if you want to eat,’ she replied.

After working with the axe, I was extremely hungry and did not argue. My hunger, I should point out, did not last long. Plucking the bird was not arduous, but what followed made me wonder if I would ever eat goose again.

She carried the carcass to a long, narrow bench. I followed her and watched as she sliced open the skin of the creature’s neck. Then she cut away the bones and head and pulled clear the crop-bag which she flung to the floor. ‘Useless,’ she said. ‘Even dogs wouldn’t touch it. Now give me your hand,’ she ordered me, and took hold of my wrist. ‘Insert two fingers here either side of the neck, and rotate them inside the beast.’ It was slimy and cold and I could feel the bird’s tiny tendons and veins being torn as my fingers slid over the brittle bones. She pulled my hand clear, then inserted her own fingers into the hole. ‘Good,’ she muttered, ‘you have released the lungs, the gizzard and the heart.’

‘I’m so pleased.’

Turning the goose, she took up a small knife and then pushed a finger into its body. Extending the skin, she cut a circular hole at the rear and discarded the sliced flesh. ‘Push your hand in and pull out the insides,’ she ordered me. I swallowed hard and did as she instructed. My stomach turned as the oily, dark and bloody mess pulled clear. I stepped back from the table.

‘Don’t you vomit in here!’ she snapped. Stepping forward, she continued to clean out the goose, removing what appeared to be oceans of fat. ‘Good tallow,’she said. ‘Candles, grease for leather, ointment for the rheumatik. Liver, heart and lung make for good broth. A fine bird.’

I couldn’t speak and turned away to where the hares were hanging head-down. Each of them had a small clay pot suspended from its ears. Walking towards one I glanced into a pot; it was full of blood but, worse than this, there were maggots floating there.I watched another emerge from the hare’s nostril and drop into the congealing blood. Sickened, I leapt back.

‘This one’s rotten!’ I said.

Megan walked over to where the creature was hanging. ‘Not at all. It is just high. The meat will be soft and full of flavour. Wulf will be coming for it tonight. We’ll prepare that next.’

I could not watch and, without the usual courtesies, ran from the hut.

The sound of Megan’s laughter echoed after rne.

It is hard for a young man to discover that he is useless. We have such pride when young. I was a good bard and a fine musician. As a magicker? Well, there might have been twenty or thirty men in the southern kingdom who were better than I — but not more.

Yet here in this village I was little more use than a mewling halfwit. It galled me beyond words. I wanted to leave, to march away to some larger settlement. But the forest was vast and my knowledge of it scant.

That evening I sat disconsolately before the fire tuning my harp and thinking back to the days of childhood in the south. Jarek awoke sometime before midnight and, without a word to Megan, took up his cloak and walked from the house.

‘Where are you from?’ I asked the old woman.

‘Not from here,’ she answered. Her speech was clipped, the pronunciation good. But the voice was disguised, I felt.

‘Are you noble-born?’ I enquired.

‘What would you like me to be?’ she responded.

‘Whatever you wish to be, madam.’

‘Then take me as I am. An old woman in a small village by a lake.’

‘Is that all you see when you look in the mirror?’

‘I see many things, Owen Odell,’ she told me, an edge of sadness in her voice. ‘I see what is and what was.’

The fire was crackling in the hearth, the smoke spiralling up through the small hole in the high thatched roof, the wind hissing through cracks in the wooden walls.

‘Who are you?’ I asked her.

She smiled wearily. ‘You want me to be some mythic queen or ancient sorceress? Do you seek always to make the world fit into a song?’

I shrugged. ‘The songs are comforting, Megan.’

‘You are a good man, Owen, in a world where good men are few. Take my advice and learn to use a blade or a bow.’

‘You wish me to become a killer?’

’Better than to be killed.’

‘Are you a widow?’

‘What is this fascination you have with my life? I grow herbs and prepare meat for the table. I weave cloth and cast an occasional spell. I am not unusual, nor in any way unique.’

‘I do not find you so.’

She stood and stretched her back. ‘Go to bed, bard. That is the place for dreams.’ Wrapping her shawl about her, she walked out into the night.

I don’t know why, but I was convinced she was leaving to meet Jarek Mace. Taking her advice, I stripped off my clothes and stretched out on the bed, pulling the goose-down quilt over my body.

Sleep came swiftly and I dreamt of a lost swan, circling and calling in the sky above an ice-covered lake. I knew he was searching for something, but I did not know what it was. And then I saw, beneath the ice on the water, a second swan, cold and dead. But the first bird kept calling out, as he flew on weary wings.

Calling… calling.

There are, it seems to me, two kinds of pride. One urges a man to disguise his shortcomings for fear of looking foolish. The second spurs him on to eliminate those shortcomings. Happily I have always been blessed with the latter.

I set to work during the winter months to learn those skills that would make me a valuable asset to my neighbours. Despite my loathing of carcasses and blood, I taught myself to gut, skin and prepare meat for the table. I learned to tan hides, to make tallow candles, to identify medicinal herbs and prepare infusions and decoctions.

And I laboured with axe and saw to supply Megan with firewood aplenty.

The villagers also taught me something valuable — how to live together in harmony, each man and woman a link in a chain, each dependent upon the other for food, clothing, shoes, bows, medicines. There was only one piece of communal property — a large, cast-iron oven. It had been bought in Ziraccu and carted into the forest, where it was leased to Garik the Baker. The rest of the huts made do with field-ovens, bricks of clay erected over tiny trenches. Garik would make bread and cakes for the villagers, in return for meats, hides and home-brewed ale. Megan earned her living by supplying herbs and curing meats. Wulf, the hunchback, brought in venison and boar meat. Each person had developed a skill that enhanced the lives of the other villagers.

Even Owen Odell found his niche. Each week, on the Holy Day, I played my harp in the village hall, creating new vigorous melodies so that the villagers could dance. I was not popular, you understand, for I was an Angostin amongst Highlanders, but I was, I believe, respected.

In my spare moments, which were few, I sat and watched the village life — observing my neighbours, learning about them, their fears and their hopes. Highlanders are a disparate people, a mixture of races, and the ancestry of many could be seen in their faces and build. Garik the Baker was a short, powerfully-built man with flat features, a jutting brow and a wide gash of a mouth. It took no.great imagination to see him dressed in skins, his cheeks painted blue in — the spiral patterns of his Pictish ancestors. There were several like Garik, whose bloodlines ran from the earliest human settlers; they were dour men, hard and tough, men to match the mountains. Others, like Orlaith the Cattle-herder, were taller, their hair tinged with the red of the Belgae, their eyes dark, their souls fiery and passionate. A few showed Angostin lines — long noses and strong chins — but these admitted to no Angostin heritage. This was hardly surprising since the Angostins were the most recent invaders, a mere few hundred years before. And Highland memories are long indeed.

My reputation among them was raised several notches when I used a Search-spell to locate a missing child. She was Wulf’s youngest and had wandered off into the forest during a cold afternoon. Wulf and a dozen of his fellows set off to look for her, but the temperature was dropping fast and most of the men knew the child could not survive for long.

A Search-spell is not difficult to cast when one lives in a forest and people are few, though only the very best magickers could cast a successful Search-spell within a city. This one was slightly more difficult for me because I blended the spell with one of Warming. Even so, an apprentice could have cast it.

Essentially one pictures the object of the search and creates a glowing sphere of white light. The image of the object — in this case a yellow-haired child — is set at the centre of the light sphere. Then the light is sent out into the woods, seeking to match the image at its heart to an outside source. It is not an unusually complex spell, and if by chance there were several yellow-haired children in the forest, it would likely alight on the wrong one. But on this day there was only one lost little girl and the sphere found her wandering beside a frozen stream, her fingers and lips blue with cold.

It touched her and the second spell became active, covering her with a warm, invisible blanket while the search-sphere rose up above the trees, blazing with light and drawing the rescuers to the toddler.

The child was unharmed, and such was Wulf s delight that he made me a present of an ornate dagger with a leaf-shaped blade and a ruby encased in gold at the hilt. He also grabbed my shoulders, dragged me down and kissed me on both cheeks — an altogether unpleasant experience.

But in the days that followed, when I was out among the villagers I would be greeted with smiles and people would enquire, politely, after my health.

It was two months before news of the war filtered through to the village. A traveling tinker, well-known to Wulf and therefore allowed to pass through, came to us one bright cold morning. He told of the fall of Ziraccu, the slaughter of its inhabitants. Count Leopold had been found hiding in the granary; his eyes were put out and he was placed in a cage and hanged from the ruined walls.

Then the army had moved on to the north. Thankfully they avoided this part of the forest.

During the evenings I would sit with Megan, listening to tales of the Highlands. They were fine, companionable times. Jarek Mace was often absent, traveling to other settlements yet always returning with news, or coin, or venison.

‘What were you like when younger?’ I asked Megan one evening, when Jarek was abroad on one of his journeys.

‘I was like this,’ she answered. Golden light bathed her from head to toe, and her short-cropped iron-grey hair was replaced by golden curls hanging free to milk-white shoulders. Her face was beautiful beyond description, her eyes blue as the summer sky, her lips full. Her figure was slim, but the breasts were large in comparison; her neck long and sleek, the skin smooth as porcelain.

I was lost for words — but not at her beauty. This was one of the Seven Great Spells, and only masters of the craft could weave one so casually,’

‘Where did you learn such a piece?’ I asked.

The beautiful woman shrugged and smiled. ‘Long ago, from a man named Cataplas.’

‘He was my teacher,’ I told her.

‘I know.’

‘But I had not the skill to learn the Seven.’

‘There is yet time,’ she said, letting fall the spell.

‘You are noble-born,’ I pointed out. ‘The gown you conjured was purest satin, and there were pearls at neck and cuff.’

‘You think I would create sacking to wear?’ she countered.

‘Why must you be so mysterious, lady?’

‘Why must you be so inquisitive?’

‘The first words you spoke to me were, ‘Do you not bow in the presence of a lady?’ Not a woman — a lady. That intrigued me at the time; it still does. You were not born in the village.’

‘You are wrong, master bard. My family were traveling at the time of my birth, and I was born in a village such as this. Far to the north. But I came here twenty years ago, and I have been content.’

‘But what is there here for you?’

‘Peace,’ she answered.

‘Why does Jarek Mace stay with you? Is he a relative?’

‘No. Just a man.’

‘I wish you would tell me more, Megan. I feel… there is so much more to know.’

‘There is always more to know,’ she chided. ‘Even as you lie on your death-bed there will be more to know. Are you another Cataplas in an endless search for knowledge? It is not the mark of a wise man, Owen.’

I shrugged. ‘How can the search for knowledge be foolish?’ I countered.

‘When it is conducted for its own sake. A man who seeks to learn how to irrigate a field in order to grow more crops has not only increased his knowledge but has found the means to make life better for his fellows. Learning must be put to use.’

‘Perhaps Cataplas will do exactly that when he believes he knows enough.’

She did not answer me at first but stirred the coals in the fire, adding fresh wood to the flickering flames. ‘There was once a prince in this land, to the north of here, who had a quest for knowledge. He was a good man, a kind man, but his quest became an obsession. His brothers, also good men, tried to sway him; he was a fine magicker, and he became a great sorcerer. But even this was not enough. He travelled across the sea, passing from land to land, ever seeking; he journeyed into desolate mountains and subterranean caverns, sought out lost cities, and communed with spirits and demons. After twelve years he returned, late one night, to the city of his birth. His brothers ruled that city wisely and well. In the summer the water was clean, filtered through sand and shale. In the winter the storehouses were full, and no one starved. But then he returned. Within the week travelers began to notice that the gates of the city were always shut, and woodsmen carried tales of screams and sounds of terror within the grey walls.

‘The days passed into weeks. No one left the silent city. People began to gather from the villages and towns, staring at the towering walls, wondering what secrets were hidden there. Several men scaled those walls, but none returned.

‘And then one night the gates opened. And the people saw…‘ At that moment the white face of a Vampyre appeared in front of my eyes, his teeth white, the canines long and sharp and hollow. I screamed and fell back, toppling from my chair. Megan’s laughter filled the cabin as I scrambled up, embarrassed and yet still fearful, my heart hammering.

‘That was unkind,’ I admonished her.

‘But wondrously entertaining.’ Her smile faded and she spread her hands. ‘I am sorry, Owen. I could not resist it.’

‘You had me convinced the tale was true. You are a fine storyteller.’

‘Oh, it was true,’ she said. ‘Have you not heard of Golgoleth and the Vampyre Kings? Two thousand years ago these lands knew great terror and tragedy. For the prince, Golgoleth, had returned as a creature of darkness, a Vampyre. He tainted the souls of his brothers, joining them to him and bringing them the dark joys of the Undead. And then the evil spread throughout the city, and ultimately throughout the land.’

‘I have heard of Golgoleth,’ I told her. ‘It is a tale to frighten naughty children: Be good or Golgoleth will come for you. But I doubt the truth of the story as it is now told. I see him as an evil man and a practitioner of the Black Arts, but not as an undying immortal feasting on blood.’

‘He did not feast on blood, poet, but on innocence. But perhaps you are right. Perhaps it was fable.’

Talons scraped upon the wood of the roof and I leapt from my seat. Then an owl hooted and I heard the flapping of wings in the night.

‘Just fable,’ said Megan, smiling, her eyes mocking. ‘Will you sleep now — or perhaps you need a stroll into the forest? It is very pleasant in the moonlight.’

I grinned then and shook my head. ‘I think I will just go to sleep — and save my walk for the dawn.’

Spring came early, the thaw swelling the mountain streams, bright beautiful flowers growing on the hillsides. It was on the third day of spring that Garik’s sheep were slaughtered, and great excitement followed. Huge tracks were found near the two butchered animals and Wulf, the senior woodsman, pronounced them to be Troll-spoor.

There were three of the creatures, likely a mated pair with a cub. They were far from the Troll passes, the high cold peaks of the north-west, and it was rare, Wulf informed me, to find the beasts so far south.

The men of the village armed themselves with bow, spear and axe and set off in pursuit. I went with them, for I had never seen a Troll and was anxious to increase my knowledge. There are many tales of the beasts in legend, almost all of them involving the kidnap and eating of children or maidens. But in all my long life I have never come across a recorded incident where Trolls feasted on human flesh.

We followed the trail for two days as it wound higher into the mountains. One of the beasts walked with a limp — probably the male, pronounced Wulf, for his track was the largest. Often the cub’s spoor would disappear for long periods, but this, I was told, only showed that the female was carrying him.

On the second night we came upon the remains of their camp-fire, the ashes surrounded by splintered sheep’s bones.

‘No point looking for them in the dark,’ said Wulf, settling down beside the dead fire and building a fresh blaze upon the remains. There were ten men besides myself and Wulf in the hunting party, and they stretched out around the fire and began to talk of better days. Garik the Baker was there, and Lanis the Tanner. The others I forget.

‘Have you ever seen a Troll?’ I asked Wulf, as we sat together. The hunchback nodded.

‘The last time was ten years ago, up in the high country. Big fellow he was, grey as a rock, with tusks curling up from his jaw, just like a boar. I didn’t have my bow strung at that moment and so we just stood and looked at each other. Then he said, ‘Go.’ So I went.’

‘They truly have the power of speech? I thought that was myth.’

‘Ah, they can talk right enough. Just a bit. When I was a tiny lad my father took me to Ziraccu Fair on Midsummer Day. They had a young Troll there, caged. He could speak a fair bit.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘They had a tourney for the knights, and before it there was a Troll-baiting. Hunting hounds were set on the beast. He fought right well for a while — too good, really. Killed four of the hounds. So the knights came in and hamstrung him. It was more even then and the hounds tore him apart. It was good sport. My father told me I should feel privileged to have seen it. There’s not so much Troll-baiting nowadays — less of ‘em, you see. They do it with bears now, I’m told, but it’s not the same.’

I moved away from the fire and, as the others slept, I idly cast a Search-spell, picturing a fanged snout on a flat grey face. The sphere floated away — then stopped no more than twenty feet from the fire. I sat bolt upright, hand on dagger, and considered waking Wulf.

But first I sent out a Questing-spell, small as a firefly, and watched it as it flew to where the Troll was hiding. The spark did not change colour, nor did it speed away from the hiding-place. I brought the tiny flame back to me and opened my mouth. It flew in and settled on my tongue. There was fear there, and resignation, but no feeling of impending violence. I sighed, for it came to me then that the creature in the bushes was the crippled male, and he was here to die in order to save his family.

I stood silently and crossed the small clearing, halting just before the dark undergrowth. The Troll loomed to his feet. He was upwards of eight feet tall and there was only one tusk growing from his lower jaw, curving out, wickedly sharp to a point level with his eye. The second horn had been sheared off, the stump brown and pitted. His skin was covered with hundreds of nodules and growths which on a human would have been termed warts. A rough-made sheepskin loincloth was tied around his waist. I beckoned him to follow me and walked away from the camp-site. I don’t know what possessed me to do it but, truly, there was no fear. I did not expect to be harmed, nor was I.

The beast followed me to the crown of a hill, where I sat upon a boulder and faced him. He squatted down in front of me, and in the moonlight I saw that his eyes were distinctly human, huge and round, and grey as an autumn storm-cloud.

‘Do not remain here,’ I said. ‘It is not safe.’

‘Nowhere safe,’ he replied. He was, as Wulf had described, stone-grey and hairless, and upon the calf of his huge right leg there was a vicious scar, serrated and long, the muscles around it withered and weak. But his arms and shoulders bulged with muscle.

‘What happened to your leg?’

‘Fought bear. Killed it,’ he grunted. ‘Why you talk?’

‘I spread my hands. ‘I have never seen a Troll.’

‘Troll?’ He shook his head. ‘A bad name. But we call you Uisha-rae, the pigs-that-walk-on-two-legs. Why you follow us?’

‘You killed two sheep belonging to Garik the Baker.’

‘For this we must die?’

‘No,’I said.’Go with your… family into the north. No one will find your tracks. Go tonight. I will hold them sleeping until you are far away.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. Go now.’

The beast reared up on its hind legs, turned and limped away from me. I returned to the camp-site and cast a Sleep-Spell that kept the hunters snoring until around noon. Once they began to wake I pretended sleep and lay quietly as they argued amongst themselves. They could not believe they had slept so long. Back in the village each of the men would have risen before dawn and been working for a good hour before the sun climbed into sight.

With the trail cold, Wulf at last called off the hunt, and we set off towards the village.

By mid-afternoon we were joined by Jarek Mace, who came loping along the trail carrying his longbow. He joked with the others for a while, then dropped back to walk alongside me at the rear of the group.

‘You keep curious company,’ he said softly.

‘What do you mean?’

He smiled and tapped his nose.

‘You saw them?’ I asked him.

‘Yes.’

‘You did not kill them, did you?’

‘You are a strange man, bard,’ he answered. ‘The male could have killed you, Owen, and if any of the others had found the tracks as I did, and known that you spoke to the creature, then they would have killed you. Why did you take the risk?’

‘I don’t know,’ I told him honestly. ‘It just seemed.. somehow sad. Here was a small family being hunted by armed men and the male… the father… was ready to give up his life to protect his wife and child. I felt it would be wrong to kill them.’

‘They were only Trolls,’ he whispered.

‘I know. Why are they so hated?’

‘They talk,’ he answered.

‘That makes no sense.’

He shrugged and walked on in silence. I thought long and hard about the Trolls, and I realized he was right. Man is the only animal capable of hate and, in the main, he reserves his hatred for his fellow man. No one hates a bear or a lion; they might fear them for their power and ferocity, but they will not hate them. But the Troll… Grotesque and powerful, yet with the capacity for speech, he is the perfect target for all Man’s resentments.

It was a dispiriting thought as we trudged on along muddy trails.

We camped by a swollen stream in a small hollow surrounded by beech trees. The night was cool, but there was little breeze and the camp-fire gave a pleasant glow to the hollow. I sat with Wulf and Jarek Mace while the others slept.

‘The Angostins have gone,’ said Jarek, ‘but they left behind an army of occupation under three generals. Ziraccu is being rebuilt and they are allowing Ikenas to move north and settle there.’

‘Who cares?’ responded Wulf. ‘As long as they stay away from the forest, I don’t give a good God-damn.’

‘I don’t think they will stay clear,’ Jarek told him. ‘Edmund has given the entire forest to the new Count, Azrek. He was responsible for the sacking of Callen Castle and the murder of the nuns and priests at the monastery there. He is a greedy man, by all accounts; he will want his taxes paid.’

‘We paid this year’s taxes to Leopold,’ said Wulf.

Jarek chuckled. That will not concern Azrek.’

If there’s nothing to take, what can he do?’ responded the hunchback.

Jarek said nothing. Wrapping himself in his sheepskin cloak, he lay down beside the dying fire and closed his eyes.

It was mid-morning on the following day when we topped the last rise before the lake. Black smoke was billowing from the village and we could see several buildings ablaze.

Wulf and the other villagers ran down the slope, but Jarek Mace stood quietly on the brow of the hill scanning the distant tree-line. Swiftly he strung his longbow and notched an arrow to the string. Then he walked slowly down the hill, angling to the south. I followed him, dagger in hand.

We found Ilka, the mute whore, hiding among the thick bushes at the foot of the hill. Her face was bruised and an arrow was lodged in the muscles behind one shoulder-blade. The wound was not deep, and it seemed the shaft had struck her at an oblique angle. Jarek broke the arrow, but did not pull it clear. ‘It needs to be cut free,’ he said. ‘If we drag it out, she could bleed to death.’

The girl could hardly stand and so I lifted her into my arms and carried her into the ruined village. Bodies were everywhere — women, old men and children, scattered in death. Wulf was kneeling by his murdered family, cradling his yellow-haired daughter in his arms and weeping.

Jarek Mace walked to Megan’s house. It was undamaged and the old woman was sitting by her fire; she was unharmed. I carried Ilka inside, laying her on the wide bed, turning her to her side so that the broken arrow jutted upwards. Jarek Mace had run to the far wall, pulling open a hidden compartment. It was empty, and he cursed loudly.

‘What happened, Megan?’ I asked.

‘Soldiers from Ziraccu. There was no warning, they merely rode in and began the killing. There was no resistance.’

‘Why did they spare you?’

‘They did not see me,’ she said wearily, pushing herself to her feet and approaching the injured girl.

Jarek Mace stormed out of the hut. Once more I followed him. It was the first time I had seen him genuinely angry. I knew it had nothing to do with the slaughter of the villagers; he was furious because the soldiers had found his cache of stolen gold and jewels.

Running to the weeping hunchback, Jarek dragged him to his feet. ‘They had horses,’ he shouted. ‘That means they must keep to the road. We can cut them off by taking the hunting track.’

‘Leave me alone!’ screamed Wulf.

‘You will let them die unavenged?’ hissed Jarek Mace. The hunchback froze, his dark eyes gleaming. Then he took a deep, shuddering breath.

‘You are right, Mace. Let’s kill them all!’

I had no wish to remain in this village of the dead, and when the fourteen hunters loped off I followed them. It was a gruelling run, down through glens, up over hills, through dense undergrowth, finally crossing a wide, shallow river, wading to the far bank and the road to Ziraccu.

Wulf ran down to the road, kneeling to examine the tracks. ‘They’ve not yet passed,’ he told Mace. ‘See, this was their outward journey.’

How many?’

The hunchback moved back and forth along the road, studying the hoofprints. ‘Maybe thirty, perhaps less. But no more.’

Jarek called the men together, ordering six to take cover on the right of the road, seven on the left. ‘Do not let fly until I do,’ he commanded them.

‘What about me?’ I asked. ‘What should I do?’

‘Stay with me,’ he answered, then sat down at the side of the road with his longbow beside him.

‘How can we fight thirty?’ I asked him, as the fear started to gnaw at my belly.

‘You just keep killing until there’s none left,’ he answered grimly.

He was in no mood for conversation, so I sat in silence for a while watching the north, listening for the sound of hoofbeats.

‘Why did they kill everyone?’ I asked at last.

‘Azrek is encouraging immigrants from the south to settle here; they will pay good money for tracts of forest land. Wulf and the others were tenants of Count Leopold. They have no rights.’

‘They could have been ordered off. There was no need to kill.’

‘There is rarely any need to kill,’ he said, ‘but men still do it.’

‘As you are intending to now?’

‘They stole my gold,’ he hissed, as if that was answer enough.

We sat for perhaps an hour and then I heard them, the slow clopping of hooves upon the dirt road. My heart began hammering and my mouth went dry.

Jarek stood and notched an arrow to his bow before stepping out into the middle of the road. I could not seem to move my legs and I sat for a moment staring at him. He seemed so relaxed as he waited, his bow held by his side, a slight smile showing on his handsome face. Drawing my knife, I climbed unsteadily to my feet.

‘Stay where you are,’ he ordered, ‘and when the battle starts run back into the undergrowth. No horse will follow you there.’

Then they came in sight, more than twenty horsemen — the front three in full armour with plumed helmets upon their heads. Behind the trio were men-at-arms in breastplates and helms of leather, and bringing up the rear was a wagon loaded with booty.

‘Good day, gentlemen,’ called Jarek Mace.