They stepped around the boulder. Picking up a handful of broken branches he tossed them on the fire and sat down, pulling the troll cloak up over his head and face, motioning for Richard to do the same.
‘No sense in blundering around any more. You can see the mine they’re hiding in.’
He motioned across the trail and as the snow fall slackened, Richard caught a glimpse of a flickering glow, the entry way to the mine, several guards silhouetted at the opening.
‘Might as well stay comfortable as we watch. The relief for those two will come up at some point and we’ll deal with them the same way.’
Richard swallowed hard, nervously scanning the woods and trail. The storm continued to thunder around them, throwing down an icy mix of rain and sleet. The trees creaked and groaned under the load. Occasionally a branch snapped, the crack echoing above the roar of the storm. At times the mist closed in, the glow from the mine disappearing, then lifted, revealing the encampment where the enemy waited out the storm.
‘If we didn’t have the Tsurani to worry about, I’d be tempted to try and turn the tables,’ Gregory whispered, breaking the silence.
‘How is that?’
‘Set up an ambush. Tough thing to do, though.’ He glanced around, as if seeing the hills in the blackness. ‘Mines in this area are all the same – lots of veins of iron, silver, some gold – there are certain to be several other entrances to cover and they must have an inner circle of guards watching. Still, it would be good not to leave this nest of murderers alive.’
Gregory reached over to the pile of firewood, and tossed another branch on which flared up.
Richard stiffened.
‘Don’t worry, boy. Just keep that cloak up over your head, they’ll think we’re with them.’
Richard nodded.
‘You’ll do fine.’
‘I don’t know,’ said the young man, barely above a whisper.
‘It’s difficult the first time you have to get close to kill another. You see their eyes, see the light in it go out. Even a troll’s eyes have that light. I’d be worried if you didn’t feel something after that. I don’t like hunting with a man who’s a killer without that feeling.’
‘They’re the enemy though,’ Richard offered, trying to sound harder than he actually felt.
Gregory sounded thoughtful as he asked, ‘Are they?’
‘Trolls and moredhel? Of course; they’re the enemy.’
Gregory nodded. ‘Well, they were created by the gods, the same as we; that’s a fact. Maybe if one was born in our towns or villages, raised with us, maybe they’d be our friends. I don’t know.’ He chuckled. ‘Moredhel, maybe. Seem a lot like elves, though to say that aloud to Tinuva is to invite a cold reply. Trolls, though, I don’t know. Can’t imagine one taking the cows to market, if you see what I mean.’ He poked at the fire with a stick. ‘Some folks say their hate for us is in their hearts from birth. Either way, learned hate or instinct to hate, we sure have to fight them often enough. But never become like them, Richard. Never think taking a life is easy. Do that and in a way they win.’
Richard was startled. In his brief time with the company he had thought of Gregory as nothing more than a man of the woods, a scout who was respected for his skills and his seemingly inexhaustible strength; but a philosopher?
‘You sound like my old mentor.’
‘Brother Vasily?’
‘You know him?’
Gregory chuckled.
‘Remember lad, I know your family. Fought beside your father when the Emperor of Queg tried to capture Port Natal. Vasily and I raised many a glass together. Ah, now there was a rare fine thinker.’
Richard said nothing. His father. Gregory knew the Squire. And what would he say?
‘Lad, if you don’t mind me saying it, your father is one fine soldier, but I wouldn’t want him as my sire. He’s a hard man.’
Richard lowered his head. The beatings. That seemed to be the only way the old man knew how to treat his sons. If they did well, there was, at best, silence; but fail in anything and there would be a beating. As the eldest surviving son, he felt that the old man would never be satisfied. Too often there was mention of Quentin, twenty years older, from the Squire’s first marriage, killed in the last war. Always the Squire spoke of him as the worthy son who should have inherited all, and that Richard was the weak second choice.
‘Quentin was a good man,’ Gregory said.
Again there was the disturbing sense that the Natalese scout somehow had the ‘sense’, the ability to read the thoughts of others. ‘I see the same in you.’
Richard poked at the fire, saying nothing. ‘I don’t think our captain sees it that way,’ he finally ventured.
Gregory chuckled. ‘Dennis is a hard man on the surface, just like your father. He has to be out here not just to survive but to preserve those who serve with him. But underneath, he’s very different. If he has a fault it’s that he loves his men too much. Every death burns his soul. Jurgen was like his elder brother, the closest friend he has ever known. You just happened to be in the way.’
‘I caused his death.’
‘Don’t ever say that again. Don’t think it. War is cruel. Men die. Jurgen did what any man would do: he went to save a comrade.’
‘I wish I had died instead.’
‘Why?’
Richard looked over at him. ‘Because,’ he lowered his head, ‘my life for his. Who was more worthy to live? Who did the company need more? I know the Captain wishes it had been the other way around.’
‘Jurgen lived his life well. He had fifty years or more, you but eighteen. I think that’s a fair trade. He gave you back years you never would have had. Just remember that and don’t feel guilty. He didn’t do it because you were the son of a squire. Remember that as well. He’d have done it for the son of a peasant or thief. So live every day after this as if it was a gift from him, and when the time comes some day, pay it back the same way he did.’
Richard looked over at Gregory, unable to speak. He realized now why the scout had wanted him out here on patrol, so that he could share these words with him.
He didn’t know what to say in response.
Gregory stiffened and at nearly the same instant Richard noticed it as well, a sound, slush crunching, something moving on the trail.
‘Lower your head,’ Gregory whispered, ‘then move when I do, and do what I do.’
Richard did as ordered, the troll’s cloak pulled up over his head, his shoulders hunched forward, watching out of the corner of his eye. There were three of them, two trolls … and a moredhel.
Should we run? Richard wondered, but Gregory did nothing.
The
