The Ancient

TWENTY – ONE

A Heroic Mistake

Badden surrounds himself with formidable allies,” Jameston Sequin tried to explain to the group of five road-weary heroes. “You should have come north with an army to properly execute your plan.”

“We could not have supplied such a force,” said the pragmatic and experienced Crait. “And the attraction it would have wrought would have had us fighting trolls and goblins and barbarians every step of the way.”

“By the time we reached our goal, if ever we did, we’d be lucky to have even this many remaining,” Brother Jond added.

“Then it seems as if your goal was never really in reach,” said Jameston. “You do not appreciate the power of your enemy. He is Badden, Ancient Badden, the Ancient of all the Samhaists. They regard him as a god, and not without cause. His powers are extreme.”

“Ever see that monk use his gemstones?” Crait interrupted. “Or that one swing that sword of his?” he added, nodding his chin toward Bransen.

“I have and was impressed-at both!” Jameston admitted. mitted. “But have you ever witnessed a dragon of despair?”

“A dragon?” Bransen asked.

“Ancient Badden is near to a god among the Samhaists, and not without cause,” Jameston said. “Have you ever battled a giant? Not a big man, but a true giant? You will if you deign to approach Badden. Creatures thrice the height of a tall man and several times his weight, with power to snap your spine with the ease that one of us might snap the shaft of an old arrow.”

“We could not bring an army,” Brother Jond said with finality. “Nor can Dame Gwydre’s people continue under the duress of Badden’s pressing hordes. We know the desperation of our plan-and to a man and woman we accepted it. Why can’t you?”

Jameston started to respond, but thought better and bit it back, offering a conciliatory, helpless laugh. “We should stay to the populated lands as much as possible,” he said instead. He crouched and drew his dagger, then etched a rough map on the ground. “We can get right into southern Alpinador along a fairly defined road, here, just east of the mountains. There are a couple of villages- reasonable Alpinadoran tribes-where we can resupply.”

“How do we know that they won’t send word of us to Badden?” asked Vaughna.

“If they even know of Badden,” Jameston replied, “they owe him no allegiance. Do not make the mistake of believing that the Samhaist has captured the hearts of the Alpinadorans. They are a proud collection of tribes with their own histories, beliefs, and practices. I know of no Alpinadoran Samhaists, not one.”

“Yet barbarians have been known among Badden’s invading hordes,” Brother Jond pointed out.

“Opportunism more than loyalty, I am certain,” said Jameston.

“It is too great a risk,” Brother Jond decided. “Let us keep to the shadows.”

“The glacier where Ancient Badden has made his home is a long and difficult trek, through wild lands that are already beginning to feel the chill of winter.”

Brother Jond nodded, and Jameston shrugged his agreement.

They set off soon after, heading generally north. They came under the shadows of a range of towering mountains on their west. Though Jameston heeded the demands of Brother Jond, over the next couple of days they often came in sight of a rudimentary road, and on several occasions, they saw the rising smoke from Alpinadoran campfires.

“Grace or muscle?” Vaughna remarked to Crait on one such occasion, when Jameston and Brother Jond had moved down to better view a village, leaving Bransen and Olconna in full view on the back edge of a bluff.

Crait snickered.

“Ah, but I like the way that Highwayman moves,” Vaughna added. “It’s all like a dance, like the wind under a moon.”

“But the redheaded one…” Crait prompted, understanding where Crazy V would go.

“Arms to hold a lover aloft,” she said. “A determined swing that’s not to be blocked or parried…”

Crait laughed aloud, and the two men at the bluff turned to regard him.

“Good thing for you I’m not the type to blush,” Vaughna whispered.

“To make others blush, though.”

“Aye, that’s the fun of life,” said Vaughna. “Grace or muscle?”

“The Highwayman’s got himself a wife, a new one, and a beloved one,” Crait reminded.

Vaughna sighed, clearly disappointed. “Muscle’ll do,” she said, and Crait laughed again.

Jameston and Jond returned, and the half-dozen moved along as always and set camp as always-except that night Olconna found an unexpected visitor.

His step was lighter the next day.

One afternoon as they passed through a stretch of pines and rocks, just below the snow line and in air cold enough so that they could see their breaths, Jameston whispered to the group that they were being watched.

“The P’noss Tribe,” he explained. “Small in number but very fierce. They range from the road below to the passes above. This is their territory.”

Bransen put a hand on his sword hilt, a movement Jameston did not miss. The scout shook his head. “We would be foolish to tarry, but they will let us pass through as long as we keep going. They trust in my respect of them.”

The group continued along, single-file, and the five unfamiliar with the land kept glancing left and right, as if expecting to see painted barbarian warriors hiding behind every tree, spear in hand.

“Try not to look so terrified,” Jameston chided them. “You will just make our hosts nervous.”

The rest of the day passed without incident. Jameston kept them up high in the mountains that night, and the cold winds howled at them, and a few snowflakes even drifted about. But Jameston Sequin knew this place as well as the Alpinadorans who called it home. He had a blazing fire going and warmed rocks for the five to keep them comfortable as they slept.

Bransen watched the man carefully long into the night and marveled at the simple serenity on Jameston’s face. He seemed fully at peace out here, like a man who had long left behind the trivial troubles of feuding lairds and Churches and petty human squabbles. As Jameston sat upon a boulder and stared up at the night sky, Bransen got a sense of a man truly at peace, of a man who had found his place in the universe and who seemed truly comfortable in that place. It occurred to Bransen that there was something Jhesta Tu about Jameston Sequin.

A thought crossed Bransen’s mind. For a fleeting moment he considered the notion that Jameston Sequin might be his father. Was it possible that McKeege was wrong, that Bran Dynard had survived the road and had used his training from the Walk of Clouds to become this legend in the northland?

Bransen gave a little snort at his own absurdity, wondering how in the world that notion had infiltrated his mind. Wishful thinking… He wanted Jameston Sequin to be his father. He wanted someone to be his father, particularly someone he could admire. Bransen had tried to dismiss the notion that Dawson McKeege’s proclamation regarding Bran Dynard’s fate had hurt him profoundly.

Jameston walked over and stirred the flames of the low-burning fire. The orange light danced across his weathered face, shadowing his deep wrinkles and reflecting off his thick mustache.

Bransen saw experience there, and competence and wisdom, and it only confirmed Bransen’s earlier recognition of serenity. This wasn’t Bran Dynard, though Bransen wished that it could be true.

He would settle for being spiritual companions, if indeed they were.

Over the course of the next few days the road all but disappeared, and no more villages spotted the landscape. Jameston’s temperament sobered considerably. Taking that lead, the other five began to feel the gravity of their situation.

They were getting close, they all believed, though none asked Jameston openly about it. They just did as the scout suggested, moving along in a straight line to the north, a few hundred feet up in the foothills of the seemingly endless mountain range. Jameston had to give them the directions far in advance for he was increasingly absent from their line, moving all about to scout the region and pick their course. On one such afternoon, with Bransen leading the five through more rows of tall and dark evergreens, the quiet emptiness was lost to a sudden sharp sound. Bransen pulled up and slid low behind some brush staring out.

“The crack of a whip,” Brother Jond whispered, moving in beside him.

Bransen resisted the urge to say that he would expect an Abellican to recognize such a sound but decided against it. He had come to like Jond. In any case, what was to be gained by creating tension among the tight-knit group?

A motion to the side turned them both to the right where Vaughna crouched behind a stump. She looked at them and pointed down and farther to the right. Following her finger, the pair did note some movement among the lower trees, though they couldn’t make out anything definite.

“Stay here,” Bransen whispered to Jond. He waved to Vaughna, and then to Olconna and Crait, who were similarly crouching in some brush up above the woman, to do the same.

Bransen reached inside himself, to his Jhesta Tu training. He surveyed the landscape, falling away before him, and potential paths appeared to him as clearly as if he were drawing it all out on a map. He belly-crawled out from the brush, popped up into a crouch, and darted to a tree some ten feet from Brother Jond. He paused only briefly before rushing out again, to the left this time, then down again to a pile of stones before belly-crawling his way to a lower stand of trees.

Soon he was out of sight of the others, sliding from shadow to shadow, for it was darker down here with the sun beginning to dip behind the mountains.

A long while passed.

Movement alerted the four to Bransen’s return-so they thought. For the form that emerged from some trees in a running crouch was that of Jameston, not Bransen. He moved to the pair highest up, and Jond and Vaughna joined him there.

Jameston’s sharp eyes instantly assessed. “Where is Bransen?”

Brother Jond motioned to the valley in the east. “Scouting.”

A concerned look crossed the scout’s face.

“What is it, then?” Crait asked.

“Trolls, mostly,” the scout answered. “Many of them, escorting a line of captured men and women to the north.”

Four sets of concerned eyes turned east immediately.

“How many trolls?” Vaughna and Olconna said together, both voices full of eagerness.

Crait couldn’t help but grin as he considered Olconna’s tone. Play hard, fight hard, he thought, for that was always the way he had regarded Crazy V. She was rubbing off on his young companion already, apparently.

“Too many,” Jameston argued. “A score at least, though the line is too long for me to get an accurate count. I dared not tarry, fearing that you five would run down heroically to intervene.”

“Are you saying that we should not?” Vaughna protested. “If there are men and women down there…”

“The Highwayman returns,” Olconna announced. They turned as one to see Bransen picking a careful path back up the mountainside. He rushed in and skidded down in the midst of the group.

“Trolls with prisoners,” he breathlessly announced.

“So we’ve been told,” Vaughna replied. “Too many trolls, so says Jameston.” She eyed the scout out of the corner of her eye as she spoke, as if in challenge.

But Jameston wasn’t taking that bait. “You wish to get to Ancient Badden, and we are only a couple of days from his glacial home. If you engage this group here and now you risk being killed or captured. You also risk having some escape to carry a warning to that most dangerous Samhaist. You have no chance of succeeding if Badden knows you are coming, of course, and little even if he does not. How many trolls are too many trolls, in that case?”

“One troll’s too many,” Crait grumbled, but the helpless shake of his head accompanying the statement showed that he had no practical answer to Jameston.

“For the greater good you would ask us to let the prisoners be tortured and murdered?” Brother Jond reasoned.

“I’m not envying your choices,” said Jameston, and he turned to Bransen as he spoke, for the Highwayman was shaking his head. Jameston knew well where this was leading.

The snap of a whip crackled through the air.

“If we hit them hard and fast, we might have them all dead or fleeing in short order,” Bransen offered.

“We’ve got the high ground to start our attack,” Olconna added.

“But if any are getting away-” warned Crait.

“Then they’ll think we came from the south to rescue the captives,” finished Bransen. “And will they even report the disaster to the Ancient? Would they dare face him with such failure?”

“A score-at least,” said Jameston.

“Then you need only kill three or four to do your share,” Vaughna interjected. She hoisted her two axes onto her shoulders. “We can’t let them walk right past us.”

“There is the greater good to consider,” Brother Jond protested.

“Spoken like an Abellican, to be sure,” Vaughna replied with a snicker.

Brother Jond sighed and looked to Bransen.

“We cannot just let them pass,” Bransen agreed. “I’d not sleep well on hard ground or soft bed alike for the rest of my days.”

“True enough and more,” said Vaughna. “We’re arguing as if we’ve got a choice, and none of us here is thinking that.”

Jameston’s eyes narrowed. “Do not underestimate trolls,” he warned.

“Killed a score of the ugly things already,” Vaughna retorted. “More than that. Let’s hit them and hit them hard.”

All heads nodded. Jameston just gave a resigned sigh and started to lay out a plan, but Bransen beat him to it, sending the scout down north of the group to pick off any trolls who would flee that way.

With Olconna and Crait moving farthest to the south, Bransen, Vaughna, and Brother Jond traveled straight down the hill. Bransen took the lead, directing the movements of the other two so that they remained out of sight until they were right above the path, the line of monsters and miserable captives rapidly approaching.

“You’re not too worn out to give a good fight, are you?” Crait whispered to Olconna as they settled into position.

Olconna looked at him curiously, even incredulously.

Crait’s smile nearly took in his ears. “Told you it was a ride worth taking,” he whispered.

Olconna’s cheeks turned as red as his hair.

With grace and speed and perfectly silently, Jameston moved undetected into position behind a clutch of boulders a dozen feet up from the trail and just ahead of the lead troll drivers.

One in particular caught his eye, a nasty-looking beast with half of its face torn away. It swung a whip easily, with practiced efficiency, and the way the others-trolls, and not just the miserable prisoners-cowered against its every word told Jameston that this was likely the leader of the group.

He drew out his finest arrow and set it to his bowstring. With steady arm, he drew back and settled perfectly. He didn’t want to shoot prematurely and ruin the surprise, but the moment the trolls became aware of the attack that ugly beast would die.

Jamestone nodded to himself. He still didn’t agree with the decision to engage, but he couldn’t deny that it would be great sport.

Thirty or more,” Brother Jond whispered breathlessly as he slid in between Bransen and Vaughan just above the road.

Neither could disagree with his assessment. Trolls milled all about the line of a dozen or so prisoners. The estimate of a score seemed inadequate indeed.

“Call it off,” Brother Jond whispered, grabbing Bransen by the arm.

For a moment Bransen seemed as if he would agree. But how? To their right Olconna and Crait were already settled, and too far away to be called back. And now the troll line had advanced and was right below them, barely a dozen strides away. There was no chance that they could sneak back up the hill unseen.

Bransen motioned farther back along the troll line to a cluster of the brutes about two-thirds of the way to the end. “Hit them harder,” he whispered. Vaughna nodded, and even Brother Jond had to concede that they truly had no options here.

They had committed. They had made their choice up on the hill. The trolls and prisoners flowed before them. They took up their weapons and set their feet under them. The first strike would be crucial.

Olconna and Crait had already surmised the higher-than-expected count and the challenges it would bring. They crouched low behind some brush, glancing over to their left, the north, waiting for the trio to begin the assault.

When that delayed longer than expected, the pair wondered if perhaps the added numbers had turned them about, but it was a brief consideration and nothing more, for as the largest cluster of trolls, nearly a dozen, moved under the trio’s position, Bransen and Vaughna leaped down on them, axes and that fabulous sword swinging hard.

“Cut the back!” Crait growled, echoing their earlier conversation, when they had decided their best action to be swinging around the rear of the troll line and driving the creatures forward in to a confused muddle. The toughened old warrior leaped up and started down, but paused as soon as he realized that Olconna wasn’t moving with him. He looked at his partner, and saw that Olconna was looking past him, was looking to the south.

“By Abelle’s skinny arse,” Crait swore when he glanced that way, when he realized that this group of trolls and prisoners was merely the lead, and that many, many more trolls were approaching from the south.

“Be quick, for we’ve got no choice!” the old warrior yelled, and tugged at Olconna’s arm, and the two charged down at the surprised creatures below.

The first few frenzied moments of that attack played out exactly as Bransen had hoped. He and Vaughna cut deep into the troll ranks, slashing and chopping the group apart. Any cohesion the trolls might have found in mounting a defense seemed scattered. Another troll fell before Bransen’s slashing sword.

To the north a squeal of agony told the attackers that Jameston would not disappoint, and for a few moments all three believed that whether it was twenty or thirty or a hundred trolls the day would be fast won!

Brother Jond’s cry brought them back to reality, though, followed as it was by shouts from Olconna and Crait.

Bransen managed a moment’s reprieve to look that way, and his heart surely sank. Olconna was in full flight, running toward him with a look of utter desperation. Behind him, straddling a dead troll, Crait stood with his back to Bransen, his arms up to ward off a barrage of flying spears. And beyond those came the trolls, so many more trolls, running and hooting.

“Free the prisoners!” Bransen yelled. “Give them troll weapons-anything!” He leaped toward the nearest humans as he shouted, but they shied away from him. Broken by days, weeks even, of tortured capture, not one of them appeared to be in any condition to fight. Those nearest fell to the ground, cowering, whimpering as Bransen approached.

A pair of trolls came in hard at him, but Bransen, too full of rage at that moment, turned aside both their spears with a single downward slash of his blade. He stepped in behind it, stiffening the fingers of his left hand and thrusting them into the throat of the troll on his left while retracting his blade from the double parry and slashing it back across, sending the troll on his right spinning to the ground.

He turned toward the south. Crait was down and squirming. Though it seemed as if he would make it, Olconna lurched suddenly and grabbed at his calf, where a spear had hit home. He stumbled down to one knee. Another spear clipped him across the side of his neck, and a fountain of red exploded about him. He fell facedown to the ground, curled and covered, groaning with pain.

Bransen rushed back to Vaughna and Brother Jond, pressed on two sides by trolls. Hope surged in him again as he marveled at Vaughna’s prowess, at the accuracy and power of her strokes. Behind her, Brother Jond lifted his fist and sent forth a bolt of bluish lightning, cutting the air above Crait and Olconna, meeting the troll charge head-on. As he let fly the bolt, so the mob of trolls let fly a volley of rocks, filling the air with missiles. Vaughna grunted and cursed as more than one smacked her hard.

Bransen had better luck-at first-twisting and dodging and snapping off a series of precise parries that deflected one rock, two, and then a third. With the third, though, the rock clipped aside but kept coming at him, right at his head. Bransen ducked it.

Almost.

It clipped him on the forehead and rebounded away. He staggered for just a moment before shaking it off. “Jameston, cover our backs!” he shouted, and started forward, going right by Vaughna. He ripped off a series of slashes and stabs that overwhelmed the nearest troll and kept on moving, determined to drive back the mob, to protect his two fallen companions.

Another lightning bolt reached past him, slamming the lead trolls, but another rock soared in for Bransen’s head. He ducked fast to the side and came right back up.

His bandanna and gemstone fell free.

He took a couple more strides, more on inertia than conscious thought, and by the end of the second, he stepped awkwardly, badly twisting his ankle and knee. “What?” he tried to cry in surprise, but he only got out, “Whaaaa…”

He knew. The Stork knew.

Bransen staggered and stumbled. The trolls closed in on him, and he tried to lift his sword to strike. He thought of the Book of Jhest, tried to recall his lessons, tried to fight through the sudden disconnect between his body and his mind. It was too sudden, too unexpected.

Bransen stumbled and fumbled. He dropped his sword and didn’t even know it, swinging his arm across as if he still held the blade. A rock smacked him in the face. The nearest trolls, both carrying clubs, ran to flank him, either side, and whacked him hard, driving him to the ground. One flew away, though, a hand axe stuck deep into its forehead.

Vaughna and Brother Jond came forward in a rush, protecting Bransen. Hardly slowing as she neared, Vaughna bent and scooped up his sword and waded into the trolls, axe and sword. She scored a kill, and wounded two others.

“Net!” Brother Jond yelled, but before the word even truly registered to Vaughna she saw the trap, a huge net thrown by a trio of trolls. Instinctively she slashed at it. Bransen’s fine sword sliced through one of its thick strands. But more nets were already airborne. The trolls pressed in from in front and from behind.

If it had been twenty, they might have won.

If it had been thirty, they might have won.