Chapter Eleven

Arrows flew from Rolen’s bow, but the trolls kept coming. They were everywhere, coming at them hard from every side. Rolen and his small little band raced up a streambed, the high banks giving them some cover from the return volley of arrows coming from the pursuing trolls.

One of his men took an arrow in the thigh but was immediately scooped up by the troll running with them. He had no idea how much further they had to go, but everything in him said it didn’t matter. They were going to die in this streambed.

Then it happened. Two massive trolls dropped into the streambed in front of them, knocking aside the arrows fired at them with the massive steel shields they were wielding. The fleeing party came to a sudden stop.

The arrows stopped. Three more trolls dropped into the streambed behind them. Trolls lined the high banks, some of them still plucking arrows from their hides. “You’re finished, humans. Surrender and you will be killed quickly.”

Rolen glared at the troll speaking to them, a brutish green and black skinned animal with a thick silver mane. “Surrendering is not an option.”

Harok Boneshard descended the streambed’s bank like a cat, agile and poised, pulling himself upright in front of Rolen. He drew in his breath, smelling Rolen. “You don’t stink of fear like so many of your comrades who have fallen today.” Then Boneshard saw the troll behind Rolen. His lips parted in a fierce growl just before he hurled himself at the Chameleon.

The Chameleon dropped the two bodies he carried as Boneshard struck him full in the chest. The two tumbled backward into the water, the fight fierce but short lived as Boneshard quickly overpowered the Chameleon, drowning him in the shallow stream. He stared at the lifeless human man now underneath him. “Your tricks will harm no more of my brothers, Shapeshifter.” Boneshard turned his gaze back to Rolen. “Kill them all.”

Rolen and his men reacted with trained experience, arrows flying at multiple targets on the banks above them, but the trolls descended on them with a fierce vengeance. Swords and knives were drawn as the trolls closed in on the small band, but just as the trolls closed the gap, a boulder crashed into one of the trolls, crushing it to a sputtering mound of flesh.

The ground trembled as Mufaun and his small army of stone giants and soldiers surrounded the trolls and their captives. “You can surrender now, and you’ll live. Fight, and you will die.”

Boneshard looked at Rolen, and Rolen could hear his own words in his mind. Boneshard wasn’t going to surrender. Not now, not ever.

The trolls attacked without warning, focusing their attack on the stone giants, but the trolls were beat down without much effort. Boneshard escaped, killing one of the stone giants and five soldiers before disappearing into the woods with only minor injuries. He made sure no one followed him.

Mufaun and Steed went immediately to Rolen, injured but looking to his men. All were alive, including the woman. Mufaun put his hand on Rolen’s shoulder, “You did well. It was a hard fight, not one you were meant to win.”

“It was my duty.”

“Does it end here? Or will you continue to serve me to the end?”

“I have served you faithfully and shall continue to do so, Commander, but I have a question, if I may speak freely?”

Mufaun had sensed something in Rolen since the beginning of the confrontation, he could have only guessed then, but here was an opportunity to know. “Speak your mind, Rolen. Hold nothing back.”

“The stone giant that killed my Second, Rone, said that I had been chosen to survive this battle by you. He called me by name and told me to serve you well in the battles that have yet to be fought.”

The silence that followed was eerie. Even the trees in the forest surrounding them seemed to be waiting for Mufaun to respond to Rolen’s accusation. Had Mufaun actually given an order condemning certain of his battalion to death? The mixed army of men and giant stared at Mufaun, some with looks of shock, others certain this leader of men would have given no such order. Mufaun knew he hadn’t. Steed knew his commander would never consent to the destruction of his own men. They were his family.

Lorn stepped to Mufaun’s side, opposite Captain Steed, and was about to speak when Mufaun laid a hand on the giant’s great stone elbow. “I chose each of you to serve in this battalion from the very beginning, some of you from your infancy in this army. I have trained you, given you Captains who could teach you how to survive and conquer in any confrontation. I have prepared you for the worst, hoping for the best. Last night, I made a choice, a hard choice, but the only one that promised a chance at saving this empire from the wiles of the Grand Marshall. I agreed to stay behind with a select few to help protect the Seer from the Grand Marshall. Those who would not be staying behind,” and Mufaun gave a look at Lorn, “would return to the Grand Marshall’s army none the wiser to the truth of our defection. That did not happen.”

“For your treachery to go unnoticed, I convinced Lady Julianna there was a need for this Grand Marshall of yours to find bodies, bodies he would recognize. It was by my design that the first of your fellows were taken in battle, but the treachery runs deeper than even your Commander guessed. The trolls were an unexpected enemy. Your Grand Marshall had condemned all of you to death, fearing your loyalty to your own commander.”

Rolen considered all that had been said, knowing time was short for all of them, then he looked at his Commander, “I am at your command.” He knelt himself before Mufaun. Men fell to a knee all around them. Even Lorn bowed himself to Mufaun.

Steed, who still stood at Mufaun’s side, turned to his Commander and said, “It seems we have work to do.”

“It does indeed.” Mufaun clapped the man on the back and moved forward to where Rolen was on his knee, “Rise, Rolen son of Fenn, let us make sure our fallen friends have not died in vain.”