Baleful Signs (Dagger of the World Book 3) Read online

  Terak skidded through the forest litter, spinning around as the goblin snarled and jabbed at him.

  “Catch him!” the orc roared. He swung the chain around, but Terak had no time to concentrate on what the orc was doing as he threw himself to one side, the goblin’s scimitar slicing through the air in front of his face.

  Terak jumped backward. He had no wish to engage three enemies at once, and he hoped that Reticula would be ignored, given her state.

  But the troll was roaring as it crashed through the rope, with the pony leaping into the woods and screaming wildly before it.

  “C’mere!” The goblin jumped forward, slashing again with its scimitar to snag at Terak’s sleeve, and he felt a bite of pain as the tip found flesh.

  “Ach!” Terak threw a return swipe, but it was wild, and the goblin easily darted to one side, lunging at him again.

  Dammit! Terak was being forced backwards, giving way yet again to the goblin who was proving easily as fast as he was, and looked better prepared for the combat than Terak did.

  “Give up! You know you’re beaten, elf!” the goblin hissed, lowering itself into a defensive crouch as it bobbed from side to side. The movement reminded Terak of some kind of spider.

  “I’ve had better enemies than you, goblin,” Terak snarled back, but his voice wasn’t convincing even to his own ears. He could see what was happening behind the goblin’s shoulder. The troll had charged easily through the rope, and the orc had thrown his chain with some kind of jawed trap at the end of it. The metal jaws had sunk into the back of one of the beast’s meaty thighs. The orc was skidding after his captured prey as the hulking troll tumbled to the floor, bellowing in agony.

  “Got it!” the orc was shouting, leaving Terak to face the goblin alone.

  And Reticula’s behind it. Terak bared his teeth.

  “Oh . . . I see,” the goblin cackled, catching Terak’s urgent glance at the fallen woman. With a movement that Terak himself would have been proud of, the goblin sprang backwards, sweeping the blade toward the humped and dark shape of the novitiate.

  “No!” Terak jumped forward, but before he could even swing his blade around, the goblin had its scimitar resting over Reticula’s bare neck.

  “Don’t!” the goblin snapped, and Terak froze, just a couple of feet away.

  “You want this girly to live? I suggest you drop your weapon. Ain’t that right, boss?” the goblin called out.

  And what’s to stop you killing her anyway? Terak didn’t move. There had to be a way out of this. He was outmatched, but there was always a way. There was always a Path—a right one and a wrong one . . .

  “Hnnh-uh!” There were the grunts and sounds of exertion behind them. Terak saw that the orc was pulling on the chain as the forest troll started to make a keening, wailing sound.

  The thing is terrified, Terak realized. It wasn’t acting like a wild troll at all, but like some kind of child, terrified of the pain and the abuse that the orc hurled its way in a series of muttered snarls and accusations.

  “Good-fer-nuthing, stupid, piece of . . .”

  Terak realized that this duo was only barely in control of the creature. He had a small window of opportunity.

  “Let her go,” Terak said, keeping his eyes fixed on the goblin. Through the corner of his vision, he could see that the orc behind had reached the ailing body of the forest troll and was now slapping it into submission with heavy cuffs.

  “Err— Do you see the position that you’re in?” the goblin cackled, gently swaying the scimitar back and forth.

  “I wouldn’t go near her; she has a plague!” Terak said, and he saw the goblin’s eyes flicker down to Reticula—which was all that he needed. He jumped forward, his short sword extending in a low thrust.

  But the goblin was fast, after all. It swung its own blade upwards in a sweep that caught the elf’s blade with a clash of metal and turned it away.

  Terak didn’t hesitate. The goblin might be a fast fighter when armed, but Terak was an elf who had been trained by some of the best hand-to-hand fighters in the entire north. He lashed out with his foot as he drew his sword arm back for a counter strike.

  “Hgh!” the goblin squealed as Terak’s foot connected with the thing’s knee, sending it sprawling to the ground in front of him.

  Yes! Terak jumped forward, his blade seeking the goblin’s heart—

  “GROOAARGH!” Just as the ground thundered once again, and the troll came charging toward them. The orc master had somehow gotten in control of his slave and had compelled it to charge at Terak.

  The goblin squealed and rolled out of the way, and Terak stumbled backwards over Reticula’s body, as the beast pounded closer, closer, sweeping one giant meaty fist at Terak.

  The elf had known he was fast, but he had never really known how fast. If anyone other than the orc and goblin had been watching, they would have been amazed at how Terak jumped out of the way. He cartwheeled in the air, bounced off the passing fist of the troll, and landed spryly several feet to one side, snarling and spitting like a cat at the giant thing that now stood over Reticula.

  The forest troll was panting and rolling its arms as it bellowed. Terak feared that at any moment it would scratch at the floor with those three-toed feet, completely crushing Reticula.

  “Wait!” Terak shouted desperately. “Call it off!” There was no way he could hope to fell a forest troll and the others.

  “I’ll surrender, just call your creature off!” Terak shouted, earning a cheer from the goblin, off to one side. The orc still hung onto the trap-chain attached to the troll, leaning back as the orc strained to do everything in his power to stop it from stamping on Reticula.

  “Drop your weapon, elf!” the goblin sneered, hobbling to its feet and retrieving its own scimitar from the floor as it stepped around the troll.

  Terak very slowly, very carefully lowered his short sword to the ground. I still have my throwing knives. I can take out the goblin . . . he thought as he crouched.

  “Hands where I can see ‘em, bilge-water!” the goblin crowed, stepping around Reticula’s form.

  Dammit! Terak slowly raised both of his hands.

  “Now, step back, or I swear that Dol-Markel here will tell our pet to squash your precious human woman like a bug!” the goblin shouted excitedly.

  I have to play for time. It’s all that I can do . . . Terak thought as he stepped slowly backwards, while the orc struggled to control the forest troll.

  “That’s it, elf. Now, drop anything of value you have . . .” the goblin snapped as it lowered itself to Reticula’s side. Its long-fingered and black-taloned claws reached down to paw at the young woman’s robes, doubtless hunting for hidden treasures—

  For the troll to suddenly make an odd noise in the back of its throat and reach down with one huge fist to seize the goblin by the neck and lift it up high into the air.

  What? Terak froze.

  “Grot! What are you doing!?” shouted the orc, whom Terak took to be this Dol-Markel.

  But the troll—or Grot, as they had apparently named it—held the goblin in front of its face and roared at the little creature. Terak heard the goblin wail in fright and saw its robes billow from the force of the creature’s yell. With a flick of its massive wrist, it sent the goblin spinning through the trees. Terak heard the sound of crashing branches, but didn’t hear the thump, as the troll had now reached down to scoop up the mumbling, groggy Reticula in its other paw and clutch her fiercely to its chest.

  What under the First Moon is going on!? Terak thought as he moved, pouncing forward to snatch up his short sword—

  The troll saw him and snarled. It raised a foot to stamp on the smaller elf.

  “Ixcht!” Terak leapt and rolled as the ground shook with the reverberation of the creature’s foot.

  “GROT!” the orc shouted, still attempting to control the creature by the trap chain that was lodged in the back of the thing’s calf. But the forest troll had become aware of its own
power, Terak saw as he spun around in the dirt. The troll had turned its attention back to its tormentor. With one kick of its wounded leg, it pulled the chain and dragged Dol-Markel to the floor.

  The orc growled and rolled as Grot attempted another stamp that surely would have flattened him. Terak saw him spring to his feet, snatching up the halberd-like cleaver from the ground. The orc bellowed its own defiant rage at the forest troll.

  Orcs were tough, Terak knew only too well. They were easily seven feet tall, and far stockier than the average elf or human. As the elf crouched in the dirt, he wondered at the odds on the orc winning the battle.

  They aren’t high, but the orc could do a lot of damage with that blade. Terak saw Dol-Markel and Grot—still clutching Reticula to his chest—hunker down as they circled each other warily. The orc looked like a smaller version of the giant monster, with his blunted fangs, scale-like skin, and blackened talons.

  For a moment, Terak wondered which enemy to attack: the one who was kidnapping his friend, or the one who had tried to attack them in the first place?

  Some sensibility in the elf’s heart made him choose Dol-Markel. Maybe it was the intimation of protectiveness—kindness even—that he saw in the way that Grot held Reticula to its chest. Either way, an orc will be easier to kill right now than a forest troll, he thought coldly.

  Terak sprang forward with his short sword in hand, running around the edge of the troll to confront Dol-Markel.

  The orc saw him, snarled, and then snarled at Grot, too. The prospect of having a new adversary didn’t seem to change his mind. Instead, Terak saw the orc raise himself up and laugh viciously, as he threw the halberd-cleaver in a complicated weave in front of himself, showing off.

  “Come and die! No one has defeated Dol-Markel yet!” the orc declared.

  Talking about yourself in third person is never a good thing, Terak thought, hissing in his cat-like way as he darted forward—

  Clang! Terak’s first low sweep was met by the silvered blur of the orc’s weapon, and the parry was so strong that it almost sent Terak flying backwards.

  “GROOAARGH!” Grot came next, throwing a fist down toward the orc’s head—

  To suddenly lurch backwards, holding one meaty claw up to its mouth as it blossomed with blood.

  “Who captured you, Grot? Who made you see your place?” the orc roared angrily as it looped the blade back and forth in front of him, forcing both Terak and Grot back down the Everdell path. “Me! Dol-Markel! You know your place, you stupid lump of flesh!” The orc advanced, and the troll appeared less eager to engage now, even making a panicked, high-pitched noise.

  “You’re a nothing, Grot! Nothing unless you do what you’re told!” The orc leapt forward, swinging the halberd-cleaver out in a strike—

  “Grooaargh!” the forest troll, despite its vast size, stumbled and flinched as it dodged out of the way, earning another cackle from the orc. This made Terak’s blood boil.

  They called me nothing once, too . . . Terak’s lips rolled back over his white teeth, and his pupils shrunk to pinpricks of determined rage.

  Memories of the Chief Arcanum’s disgust and hatred filled him. All the times he had been called “worm” by the very people who were supposed to be teaching him, guiding him. All of the slurs and insults that he had earned from his fellow acolytes, Brothers and Sisters.

  But they all underestimated me, didn’t they? Terak thought, as he moved. He flicked his short sword forward to feel it clang and clash as it met the orc’s skilled defense.

  His attacks were only feints. His other hand swept to his weapons harness and tore from his side one of the small pouches that Father Jacques had equipped him with.

  Another flash of steel as the orc batted away Terak’s attacks, spinning the giant cleaver in a return blow—

  As Terak threw the pouch of Blind-Eye at the brute, to watch it explode in a cloud of gray-white powder. Dol-Markel shouted sudden angry curses.

  “Argh! What did you-? Get it off me!” Dol-Markel staggered back, shaking his head as the acrid powder clung to his face and neck. His weapon fell to one side as one hand reached up to claw and slap at his own face. Blind-Eye was a simple but horrible little concoction of the Enclave-External, Terak knew. It tore at the lungs and throat of those afflicted, and its powdered shards of glass and pepper earned it its name.

  “GROOAARGH!” An immense shadow moved past Terak as the forest troll seized its revenge. One fat, trunk-like leg shot out, and the three-clawed foot hit the incapacitated Dol-Markel squarely in the chest, sending him spinning backwards into the forest as easily if he were a toy in a child’s game.

  This time Terak heard the crash, groan, and thump as Dol-Markel must have hit at least one tree before he hit the ground. The troll bellowed at the sound, growling and gasping and moving from foot to foot.

  Of course, now my job has gotten a whole lot harder . . . Terak warily stepped back as he eyed the infuriated forest troll clutching his friend.

  “Grargh!” the thing growled at him, but the elf could see that it was more out of warning than rage.

  The elf looked at the troll. His short sword suddenly seemed like a very silly little thing about now. He let it drop to his side as he raised one hand up to the creature.

  “Uh . . . Can I have my friend back now, please?” he said, not knowing what else to say.

  The troll snapped its heavy mouth at him, making Terak flinch. Maybe not. He saw the creatures’ brow furrow in apparent anger—

  “Wait . . .” Reticula murmured in the thing’s arms, and Terak saw the young human woman reach a pale hand to lightly touch the creature on the side of its massive arm. The touch immediately seemed to soothe the powerful creature. It returned to its high-pitched keen, like a baby bird.

  “Reticula, are you okay? Has it hurt you?”

  “He . . . It’s a he,” he heard her whisper, before her voice lowered and mumbled. Terak once again felt the back-of-the-teeth and jaw ache of magic as something passed between the two of them. The forest troll’s shoulders stooped a little, before it sat down onto the path with a heavy thump, breathing hard.

  “I cast an enchantment. He thinks I’m his mother . . .” Reticula groaned as the troll’s arms slipped, and the novitiate did also, half falling, half stumbling to the dirt. Terak moved quickly to her side. Before he could even attempt to catch her, the troll’s head snapped up and a low, threatening growl hit him once again.

  “Okay. Okay, I won’t touch mother.” Terak raised his hands and stepped back. He remembered that Reticula had been very successful in the Chief Arcanum’s Testing over a year ago. Where Terak had proved himself to be a null, Reticula’s test had determined that she would have skills in illusions, natural, and martial magic.

  “Even under an illusion, surely it—I mean—he knows you can’t be his mother?” Terak whispered to Reticula’s pale form. The magic that she had performed had apparently taken its toll on her, as she slumped to the ground, earning a low moan of alarm from the forest troll beside them.

  But Reticula was clearly fighting her waves of exhaustion, as she pushed herself up on one arm. “My natural magic allowed me to make a connection, and I combined it with an illusion of what his mother felt like, when he was a troll-ling,” she explained.

  Terak blinked in astonishment. As a null, trying to understand magic was to him like trying to understand the language of fish. But he was amazed in hearing what his fellows could do with it, nonetheless.

  “Here.” Terak saw that some of the saddlebags from their now long-gone pony had been thrown to the side of the path when the steed had fled. He moved—carefully, as every movement from him seemed to provoke a guttural growl from the forest troll—to grab the bag, finding the rest of his potions as well as their supplies.

  He handed Reticula the water and the wax-paper wrapped slab of nutritious oats, seeds, dried berries, and honey. With no magic of his own, he had to resort to more mundane methods of helping his friend fight her poiso
ning.

  Next, he took out one of the vials of the healing mercurial water that Father Jacques had insisted that he take and held it up so that the troll could see it.

  “Your finger.” Terak pointed at the troll’s appendage, which he still held awkwardly. It had stopped dripping the thick green substance and had instead darkened to form a crust on the claw.

  Terak un-stoppered the vial and stepped toward the great creature, earning a warning growl as soon as he drew close.

  “Ghrike, it’s okay . . .” Reticula murmured, and the forest troll looked sullen as if he really didn’t think that it was going to be okay. But his growling turned into a low murmur as Terak reached up to pour the potion over the troll’s injured claw.

  There was a faint hissing, and again that familiar jaw-ache, but Ghrike now made a pleased, almost purr of a sound as he inspected his now-healed digit.

  “That’ll go some way to making him like you,” Reticula said with a weary smile.

  “Ghrike? Is that his real name?” Terak asked, earning a nod. “Well, it suits him a lot better than Grot.”

  He cast a dark glance out into the woods in the direction that the Dol-Markel and the goblin had been sent flying.

  “Hnnh . . .” a low moan from Reticula brought Terak racing back to the present situation however—and their present danger.

  “Breathe, drink more,” he said, rushing to her side. He drew forth the balm that Father Jacques had given him to treat the Estreek’s poison. Reticula slumped against Ghrike’s knee, her eyes fluttering in pain.

  “Let me see.” He moved to her shoulder, and the woman didn’t object as he gingerly pulled her cloak out of the way to reveal her arm.

  First Moon! Terak had to struggle from exclaiming out loud at what he saw. The blackened bruise of tendrils that had looked like a rose on the novitiate’s shoulder had spread. Now there were thick black lines snaking down the length of her arm into her forearm and disappearing over her shoulder and collar bone.

  “It’s gotten worse,” Terak said as he applied the cooling balm to her entire arm. This appeared to soothe her pain somewhat, but Reticula still scowled.