“No, I…no, killing them was justified. I did try to speak with them, but they were unwilling to listen, so we had to protectthe ponies and ourselves. The goddess understands such dilemmas.”
“By the tits of the old ones, these things reek,” one of the twins called out from the fire.
“Aye, much like their master, which is the other situation we got to attend to. These packs don’t run out wild like this. They go with their masters, which means we got a mountain troll nearby to deal with.”
We all fell into silence, listening. There were no sounds of trees snapping. The ground did not rumble with the tremors a charging troll would evoke.
Hands carded into Newt’s thick, long fur, I broke into the quiet. “Click spoke of a farm that was ablaze nearby. Perhaps the troll is there?”
“Hmm, maybe.” Asdren threw me a fast look. “Smuta, Chirp, come with me. We’ll look for the other ponies as we go. You two skin them sickly bastards out and then haul the carcasses away for the scavengers. Get them far from camp. We don’t need no more fucking surprises. And clean up the mess left behind as best you can. The smell of blood is thicker here than it is at the butchery.”
The twins began to complain. One fast bark in dwarven from Asdren silenced them. I gave Newt one final warm thought before leaving him with the twins. Taking a stick from the fire, I stepped into the dark woods. The light from the burning stick illuminated the area around us, but it also made the blackness outside the flame that much darker.
“We should be safe enough,” I told the two behind me who were about as stealthy moving through the troupe of drunken minstrels. “Any beast of prey is long gone from the area, and any predator should have also darted off when the pack arrived. Smaller canines such as fox would not chance running into those beasts.”
“Makes sense,” Asdren commented as we made our way in the direction that Click had flown back from. It was not long before the acrid smell of a fire drifted under our noses. The stench of burning flesh was thick on the cold winds. “Damn,” Asdren whispered a moment later when we cleared a small mound of rocks that had been plowed from a turnip patch. The small homestead attached to the turnip patch was aflame, and the barns were also alight. Walking closer, we stepped around dead cattle, sheep, and a few pigs, all slain and then left lying. “Yep, definitely troll. They send the mad hound out ahead then come along to gather the goods. The hounds are fed some of the bounty. Well-trained mutts they are. Rumored to be crosses of wolves and tundra hyenas.”
I nodded along, my eyes watering as we neared the small home. Flames leapt skyward. In the bright light of the fire, we could see a large shape lying in the doorway. The mountain troll was dead, skin seared off, a neat hole in the side of its head. Tossed about the yard like dolls were three dwarves and two elves. Not an uncommon thing here on the fringes of lands that both races shared. Many races mingled out here in the harsh lands. Sadly, none were alive.
“Shitful things trolls are,” Smuta coughed out as she dropped to a knee beside a young dwarven male with a severely broken neck. “Always picking on them that are smaller than them, but this house took the fucker down as they fell.”
Asdren stood beside me, quiet as the night itself, and exhaled. “We got to bury them in the ground, back there under the rocks. You want to take them elves to a tree, I wager?”
“Please, yes, they will be closer to the goddess,” I whispered.
“Right then, let’s get these people taken care of.”
We did just that. Digging under the flat rocks and then laying the shale atop the fallen dwarves, we then took a momentat their graveside. I stood back a space behind Asdren, whose long hair fell into his face as he bowed his head.
“Hearthmother, we send these hearts of flint back to you, to the fires of your eternal hearth, so that the stone may be their bed. May the memory of their valiant battle never fade, and may they sing their songs in the halls of the ancestors for eternity,” he said with conviction.
Smuta murmured along and turned to face me. “Right. They’re with the mother now, let’s get your people tossed into the trees.”
“There is no tossing,” I mumbled under my breath.
Since the trees were sparser here, it took us a bit longer to find a pine with thick enough boughs to hold the adult elves. Working silently, I climbed up into the tree and took the deceased from the dwarves on the ground. Asdren watched with interest as I arranged them properly, eyes closed, hands on their chest. Seated with the dead, I pulled some pine needles from the tree to sprinkle over their mangled bodies. They should have herbs, been washed, and dressed in fine robes, but that was not available here. I was sure Danubia would take them into the cycle of life no matter what their clothing was.
“Gracious Danubia, bring peace and respite to these children of yours as they venture onward. Clasp them to you and guide them from their suffering into the light of the lifegiver. Cleave them onto you so that they may cycle back into the glory that is your wild heart.”
A dove cooed in the distance. A sure sign that the goddess had heard my prayer and had chosen to reply through one of her divine creatures.
I climbed back to the ground. “They are on their way. We should return to the camp. I can reach out to the ponies as we go,” I said, and so we returned to camp, the house burning brightly behind us. It was easy to find the other ponies. They’dnot gone too far. They came trotting to us as soon as they heard my thoughts. With soft pats and words of encouragement, we took them back to camp, where the twins were washing their hands in the creek.
“Find the troll?” Narub enquired as he splashed some water on his sword to cleanse the blood from it.
“Aye, dead at the hands of the farmers. None of them survived the encounter.” Smuta sighed out, peeling off her breastplate as we strode to the fire. “We laid them to rest under the stone, and the elves are dangling in a tree like smoked fish.”
“They’re with the Hearthmother now,” Asdren added while dropping down to sit on the ground by the fire. The carcasses had been taken away, the soft dirt combed over to cover the pools of blood, and the fire stoked back up.
“Her flame never dies though her fire burns low,” the four dwarves murmured.
“I’m going to that trout hole upstream to wash the stink of them mangy troll mutts from my backside,” Smuta announced and grabbed her saddlebags from the ground by her sleeping roll. “Been four days. I can smell myself.”
The men nodded. I watched her stalk off downstream with concern. If the twins had taken the dead pack in that direction, she could run into wolves. And without any weapons, she would be defenseless, so I slipped off to re-tether the ponies and then faded into the dark. I would keep watch from a distance with my bow at the ready. Should a wolf or any other horrid creature that called these mountains home arrive, I could drop it with ease. Splashing about in the water like a catfish on the bank made it easy to find the female. Also, she was humming a song I did not recognize. Silently, I found a fat fir to hide behind. I rested my back against the tree and startled when something short but loud charged out of the dark. Thinking it was a boar, I grabbed my bow, sighing when I saw Asdren step up to me.
“What the fuck is it you think you’re doing, Chirp?” he snapped up at me. “Come out to sneak a fast peek at her titties under the moonlight?”
“Thereisno moonlight, you stumpy dolt,” I fired back.
