Vanion rubbed at the side of his face. ‘I think we’ll want the Trolls to come to us instead of the other way round, don’t you, Sparhawk?’
‘Definitely, but a feint of some kind should draw them out.’ Sparhawk thought for a moment. ‘Why don’t we move a mile or so out into the meadow so they can see us. Then we’ll draw up in a standard formation – knights in the center, Atans on either side, and the Peloi out on the flanks. Cyrgon’s got a military mind, and that formation’s older than dirt. He’ll think we’re preparing to attack. The Cyrgai are an aggressive people, and they would want to attack first. Cyrgon’s commanding Trolls this time instead of his own people, but I think we can count on him to do what’s customary.’
‘He might as well,’ Ulath shrugged. ‘The Trolls will attack as soon as they see us no matter what Cyrgon wants them to do. The idea of just defending themselves won’t even occur to them. They look on us as food, and somebody who sits in one place waiting for supper to come to him usually goes to bed hungry.’
‘Better and better,’ Vanion said. ‘We’ll hold our formation and let them get to within a few hundred yards of us. Then we’ll turn the Troll-Gods loose. They’ll reclaim their Trolls and Cyrgon will be left standing out there in the middle of the meadow all alone.’
‘Or maybe not quite,’ Sephrenia added. ‘He might just have Zalasta with him. I certainly hope so, anyway.’
‘Savage,’ Vanion said fondly to her.
‘Let’s leave the army here and go round to the back side of the village,’ Sparhawk suggested. ‘If we’re going to talk with the Troll-Gods, I’d rather not do it out in plain sight.’ He turned Faran and led the others around the ruined village to a smaller clearing a few hundred yards to the east.
Sparhawk had deliberately not closed the box after Bhelliom had transported them to Tzada. This time he wanted his enemies to know where he was. ‘Blue Rose,’ he said politely, ‘canst thou find anything amiss in our plan?’
‘It seemeth sound to me, Anakha,’ the stone replied through Vanion’s lips. ‘It might be prudent, however, to advise the Troll-Gods that Cyrgon may reach back into antiquity for reinforcements once he doth perceive that the Trolls are no longer deceived by his assumed guise.’
‘Thou art wise, my friend,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘We shall so advise them.’ He looked at Aphrael. ‘Don’t pick any fights right now,’ he told her. ‘Let’s try to get along with our allies – at least until the battle’s over.’
‘Trust me,’ she said.
‘Do I have any choice?’
‘No, not really. Bring on the Troll-Gods, Sparhawk. Let’s get to work. The day won’t last forever, you know.’
He muttered something under his breath.
‘I didn’t quite hear that,’ she said.
‘You weren’t supposed to.’ He raised the glowing gem. ‘Please bring them forth now, my friend,’ he told it. ‘The Child Goddess doth grow impatient.’
‘I did notice that myself, Anakha.’
Then the vast presences of the Troll-Gods were there, glowing blue and towering enormous.
‘The time is come,’ Sparhawk announced in Trollish. ‘This is the place where Cyrgon has your children. Let us join together to cause hurt to Cyrgon.’
‘Yes!’ Ghworg exulted.
‘I will remind you of our compact,’ Aphrael said. ‘You have given surety. I will hold you to your promises.’
‘Well will we keep them, Aphrael.’ Ghworg’s voice was sullen.
‘Let us repeat them,’ she said shrewdly. ‘Promises made in haste are sometimes forgotten. Your children will no longer eat my children. Is it agreed?’
Ghnomb sobbed his assent.
‘Khwaj will restrain his fire and Schlee his ice. Agreed? Ghworg will forbid your children to kill mine, and Zoka will permit no more than two cubs to each she-Troll. Is it agreed?’
‘Agreed. Agreed,’ Ghworg said impatiently. ‘Free us.’
‘In a moment. Is it also agreed that your children will become mortal? That they will age and die as do mine?’
They howled in fury. They had evidently been hoping in their dim minds that she had forgotten that promise.
‘Agreed?’ she bored in with a not-so-veiled threat in her voice.
‘Agreed,’ Schlee said reluctantly.
‘Turn them loose, Sparhawk.’
‘In a minute.’ Then he spoke to the Troll-Gods directly. ‘It is our intent to punish Cyrgon,’ he told them. ‘Let him seem to have victory in his mouth before we jerk it from between his teeth. Thus will he suffer more.’
‘It speaks well,’ Schlee told the others. ‘Let us hear its words. Let us find out how the pain of Cyrgon may be made greater.’
Sparhawk quickly outlined their plan of battle. ‘Thus,’ he concluded, ‘when your children are ten tens of strides from Aphrael’s children and Cyrgon exults, you can appear and jerk your stolen children back from his grasp. In pain and agony may he bring his own children from the shadowy past to meet us. I will appeal to the Child Goddess and ask her to relent this once and let your children feast upon Cyrgon’s, and Cyrgon himself will feel their teeth as they rend and tear the flesh of his children.’
‘Your words are good, Anakha,’ Schlee agreed. ‘It is my thought that you are almost worthy to be a Troll.’
‘I thank you for thinking so,’ Sparhawk replied a bit doubtfully.
The army advanced at a steady trot. The Church Knights, their armor gleaming in the slanting rays of the newly risen sun and the pennons on their lances fluttering, rode forward, the hooves of their heavy war-horses crushing the knee-high grass of the meadow. The unmounted Atans loped along on either side, and Tikume’s Peloi, probably the finest light cavalry in the world, ranged out on the flanks. Despite Vanion’s violent objections, Sephrenia and Xanetia rode with the knights. Flute, for some obscure reason, rode with Talen this time.
They trotted perhaps two miles out into the frostwhite meadow, and then Vanion held up his hand to signal a halt. Ulath blew a long, strident blast on his Ogre-horn to pass the word.
Engessa, Betuana and Kring joined them. ‘We have more details now,’ Betuana told them. ‘Some of our scouts concealed themselves in the high grass to watch the Trolls. Cyrgon is exhorting the man-beasts, and there are several Styrics with him. My people don’t know the language of those monsters, so they couldn’t understand what Cyrgon was saying.’
‘It’s not too hard to guess.’ Tynian shrugged. ‘We’ve got quite an army here, and we’ve drawn up in the traditional battle formation. I’m sure Cyrgon thinks we’re planning to attack the Trolls. He’s preparing them for battle.’
‘Could your scouts recognize any of the Styrics, Betuana?’ Sephrenia asked, her face grim.
The Atan queen shook her head. ‘They couldn’t get that close,’ she replied.
‘Zalasta is there, Sephrenia,’ Xanetia said. ‘I can feel the presence of his mind.’
‘Can you hear his thoughts, Anarae?’ Bevier asked her.
‘Not clearly, Sir Knight. He is not yet close enough.’
Vanion frowned. ‘I wish we could get some assurance that this ruse of ours is working,’ he fretted. ‘This could turn very ugly if Zalasta’s got any idea at all of what we’re planning. Could your scouts get any kind of estimate about how many Trolls are out there, your Majesty?’
‘Perhaps fifteen hundred, Vanion-Preceptor,’ Betuana replied.
‘That’s almost the whole herd,’ Ulath observed. ‘There aren’t really very many Trolls.’ He made a wry face. ‘There don’t really have to be. One Troll’s a crowd all by himself in a fight.’
‘If we were planning a battle, would we have enough men?’ Tynian asked him.
Ulath wobbled one hand back and forth uncertainly. ‘It’d be touch and go,’ he replied. ‘We’ve only got about twelve thousand. Attacking fifteen hundred Trolls with so few would be an act of desperation.’
‘Our ruse is believable, then,’ Vanion said. ‘Cyrgon and Zalasta shouldn’t have any reason to suspect a trap.’
They waited. The horses of the knights were restive and grew more difficult to control as the minutes ticked by.
Then an Atan woman came running back across the frosty meadow. ‘They’ve started to move, Betuana-Queen!’ she shouted from about a hundred yards out.
‘It worked, then,’ Talen said gleefully.
‘We’ll see,’ Khalad said cautiously. ‘Let’s not start dancing in the streets just yet.’
The scout came the rest of the way across the meadow to join them.
‘Tell us what you saw,’ Betuana commanded.
‘The man-beasts are coming toward us, Betuana-Queen,’ the woman replied. ‘They move singly, some far to the front and others lagging behind.’
‘Trolls wouldn’t understand the concept of fighting as a unit,’ Ulath told them.
‘Who commands them?’ Betuana asked.
‘Something that is very large and ugly, Betuana-Queen,’ the scout reported. ‘The man-beasts around it are taller than any Atan, and they scarcely come as high as its waist. There are Styrics with it as well – eight, by my count.’
‘Did one of them have silvery hair and beard?’ Sephrenia asked intently.
‘There were two such. One is thin, and one is fat. The thin one is close by the big ugly thing.’
‘That one is Zalasta,’ she said in a bleak voice.
‘I’ll take a promise from you now, Sephrenia,’ Vanion said firmly.
‘You can go whistle for promises right now, Vanion,’ she replied tartly. She was flexing her fingers in an ominous sort of way.
‘You were right, Sparhawk-Knight,’ Engessa said with a faint smile. ‘When we reached Sarsos last summer, you said Sephrenia was two hundred feet tall. She does seem to grow as one comes to know her better, doesn’t she? I don’t think I’d care to trade places with Zalasta right now.’
‘No,’ Sparhawk agreed. ‘That wouldn’t be a good idea.’
‘Will you at least agree to think just a little before you start grappling with Zalasta?’ Vanion pleaded. ‘For my sake? My heart stops when you’re in danger.’
She smiled at him. ‘That’s very sweet, Vanion, but I’m not the one in danger right now.’
Then they heard it. It was a dull, rhythmic thudding of hundreds of feet striking the earth in unison, and that thudding was accompanied by a low, brutish grunting. Then the thudding and grunting suddenly broke off, and a shrill, wailing ululation rose, fluctuating and piercing the chill air.
‘Kring!’ Ulath barked. ‘Let’s go have a look!’ And the two galloped out across the frozen meadow.
‘What is it?’ Vanion asked.
‘Very bad news,’ Kalten replied tensely. ‘We’ve heard that noise before. When we were on our way to Zemoch, we came across some creatures Sephrenia called the “Dawn Men”. They make Trolls look like tame puppies by comparison.’
‘And the Troll-Gods wouldn’t have any authority over them,’ Sephrenia added. ‘We might have to retreat.’
‘Never!’ Betuana almost shouted. ‘I won’t run away again – not from anything! I’ve been humiliated too many times already! My Atans and I will die here if necessary!’
Ulath and Kring came riding back, their faces baffled. ‘They’re just ordinary Trolls!’ Ulath exclaimed. ‘But they’re stamping and grunting and wailing the same way the Dawn-Men did!’
Flute suddenly burst out laughing.
‘What’s so funny?’ Talen demanded.
‘Cyrgon,’ she replied gaily. ‘I knew he was stupid, but I didn’t think he was this stupid. He can’t tell the difference between Trolls and Dawn-Men. He’s forcing the Trolls to behave the way their ancestors did, and that won’t work with Trolls. All he’s doing is confusing them. Let’s go out and meet them, Sparhawk. I want to watch Cyrgon’s face crumble and fall off the front of his head.’ Then she drove her little grass-stained feet into the flanks of Talen’s horse, obliging the rest of them to follow along behind.
They crested a low hill and reined in. The Trolls were advancing through the tall grass on a broad front, quite nearly a mile across, shuffling, stamping their heels, and grunting in unison. A vast shape which very closely resembled Ghworg, the God of Kill, shambled along in the center of the brutish throng, beating on the frozen ground with a huge, iron-bound club.
The monstrous apparition was closely surrounded by a group of white-robed Styrics. Sparhawk could quite clearly see Zalasta to Cyrgon’s right.
‘Cyrgon!’ Aphrael called. Her voice was shatteringly loud. Then she spoke at some length in a language that had only traces of Styric in it and was shaded around the edges with bits and pieces of Elenic and Tamul and a half-dozen other languages as well.
‘What tongue is that?’ Betuana demanded.
‘It is the language of the Gods,’ Vanion replied, his voice carrying that slightly wooden overtone that always overlaid it when Bhelliom spoke. ‘The Child Goddess doth taunt Cyrgon.’ Vanion seemed to wince slightly. ‘Thou wert perhaps unwise to expose thy Goddess overmuch to Elenes, Sephrenia,’ Bhelliom observed. ‘Her capacity for imprecation and insult seemeth me inappropriate for one so young.’
‘Aphrael is hardly young, Blue Rose,’ she replied.
A faint smile touched Vanion’s lips. ‘Not to thee, perhaps. Perspective, however, doth color all. To me, thy seemingly ancient Goddess is scarce more than a babe.’
‘Be nice,’ Aphrael murmured. Then she continued to rail at the now-enraged Cyrgon.
‘Can you hear Zalasta’s thoughts now, Anarae?’ Kalten asked.
‘Clearly, Sir Knight,’ Xanetia replied.
‘Does he have any suspicion at all about what we’re going to do?’
‘Nay. He doth believe that victory is within his reach.’
Aphrael stopped in mid-curse. ‘Let’s disabuse him of that right now,’ she said. ‘Turn loose the Troll-Gods, Sparhawk.’
‘An it please thee, Blue Rose,’ Sparhawk said politely, ‘evict thine unwanted tenants now.’