Raven's Strike (6 page)

“Easy,” soothed Tier, and Skew, his warning given, allowed himself to be gentled. “What's wrong?”

The storm chose that moment to turn from a gentle rain into a downpour; Seraph ducked her head involuntarily. When she looked up, there was a horse facing them in the middle of the path.

It was pale as death—a dirty off-white that darkened to yellow on the ends of his ragged tail. It looked cadaverous, with a full fingerspace between each rib and great hollows behind its sunken eyes.

“What's wrong?” said Jes, and at first Seraph thought he was just repeating Tier.

But then the horse spoke in a voice as rough and terrible as the storm.

“Come,” it said, then dashed into the trees.

Both boys and the dog disappeared behind it. Skew took a bounce forward before Tier stopped him and looked at Seraph and Hennea.

“It's the forest king,” said Seraph as soon as she realized it herself. “Go ahead. Hennea and I'll catch up.”

He didn't wait for her to say it twice.

“That's Jes's forest king?” asked Hennea as she scrambled beside Seraph in Tier's wake. “Not exactly what I expected.”

“He seldom is,” agreed Seraph absently as she tried to pick a quick way through the undergrowth near the trail.

“Do we need to track them, or do you know where we're going?”

“Can't you feel it?” asked Seraph. “I wasn't paying attention until it worsened—but this storm is called.”

“Rinnie?”

“Unless there's another Cormorant in the area. Something is very wrong.”

They fell silent then, Seraph turning all her energies to climbing. The shortest path home was steep, forcing them to slow before they were halfway there.

“I'm going to the farm,” she told Hennea, between gasps for breath. “That's where it feels like she is. I'll be able to tell for certain once we top this rise.”

Hennea didn't bother to try and talk.

Seraph stopped at the ridgetop. The farm lay below, but she couldn't see it for the trees and the darkening skies. She had more than vision to call upon, though.

The first thing Seraph had done when she and Tier had moved to the farm was to walk a warding that surrounded it. The farm was too close to the old battlefield, Shadow's Fall, to be entirely safe without protection from the kinds of creatures attracted to shadow. Several times a year for twenty years she'd added to its potency.

Her warding traced along the crest just here.

Seraph knelt in the pine needles and touched the threads of her spelling. Power swept through her in a heady rush—something shadow-touched was trying to cross it at that very moment. Like a spider at her web, she waited, letting her breathing slow, while she waited for the warding to tell her more.

It settled back down after a moment, though she could tell that whatever shadowed thing had touched it was still near. There were some weak areas in the warding, she noticed, as if it had been much longer than the six months or so when she'd
last reworked it: something or a number of somethings had been trying the warding while she'd been gone.

Thunder cracked almost instantaneously with the bright flash of lightning, and it was followed by a second strike and a third before the wind picked up into a howling force.

With evidence of Rinnie's distress, Seraph was unwilling to wait longer for more information, but she sent power surging through her warding, tightening it as a fisherman tightens his net. It wasn't enough to completely repair the damaged areas, but it would hold until she had time to do it right.

She came to her feet and started down the slope toward home.

“What did you learn?” asked Hennea.

“Not much, something shad—” Seraph's voice was broken by a torturous howl that rose above the wind.

“Troll,” said Hennea.

Heart in her throat, Seraph started running again.

They came out of the trees still somewhat above the farm, but it didn't look as it had when Seraph left it. Instead of a half-plowed field and an empty house, there was a field of tents and her house was illuminated from within and without by dozens of lanterns. For courage, she thought, because it wasn't yet dark enough to require lanterns for sight, though with the rain it wouldn't be long before darkness had hold here.

Among the changes wrought since she'd been home last was a crowd of people that looked to be composed of the whole village, all confronting a troll that straddled the path leading to Redern.

Seraph pushed her way through the first group of people, mostly women and children, and into the clear space in front of them, where she paused to take in the enormity of her task.

It was a forest troll, moss-green and larger than its more numerous cousin, the mountain troll. By the earlobes which hung so long they brushed its stooped shoulders, it was older than any Seraph had ever seen.

That trolls had two arms and two legs had given rise to the rumor that the thing was related to humans. Anyone who thought so, in Seraph's opinion, had never seen a troll. Small red eyes were set deep and close on a head as wide as Skew was long above a nose that was merely two slits in the bumpy
textured skin. Tusks curled out of its jaw and pulled the lower lip down to reveal fist-sized, serrated teeth that could snap a cow's skull open.

Seraph's long-ago teacher had speculated that they were hobgoblins or some other small creature morphed by the Shadowed King. He'd told her the first mentions of trolls in books and stories came after the Fall of the Shadowed.

However they came into being, Seraph could wish this one a long way away instead of pacing back and forth at the trail-head to Redern, with its head topping the nearest trees.

As far as Seraph could tell, almost every able-bodied man of Redern had gathered along the edge of the warding that had so far kept the troll from coming closer, almost as if they could tell where it was. Born and bred in the Ragged Mountain as these folks had been, it wouldn't surprise Seraph if they could sense her ward—though it could just be experience had taught them how far the troll could come. Some of them had bows or swords, but most of them held whatever implement had come to hand. She saw Bandor, Tier's sister's husband, with one of the big knives they used to cut bread.

She couldn't see the forest king—or Jes either, but it didn't surprise her. If either was here, he'd be in the forest, not in the midst of a crowd of people.

Tier was in the very front of the line of defenders. She could see him easily over the others because he was the only mounted man. Not many horses could be brought so close to a troll, but Skew was a warhorse born and bred.

The gelding roared the chill sound that belonged to fighting stallions—and geldings, too, apparently. Foam lathered his chest and neck, and the rest of him was wet with sweat and rain. Ears back, he rose to his hind legs in a slow, controlled rear. Warhorses, Tier had once told her, had been trained to turn their fear to anger—just as Seraph herself usually did.

Tier had his sword out, not brandishing it, but at the ready.

Some chance movement in the crowd gave Seraph a quick view of Rinnie, standing just behind Skew. She was a child still, with only the faintest of signs of the woman she would be. She should have looked pitiable next to the warrior and the troll, but her whole body glowed brighter than the lanterns Seraph had just passed.

For a moment Seraph let herself be awed by the beauty of the power a Cormorant could gather.

But it was just for a moment because Rinnie didn't have the control to hold that kind of power—nor was it doing any good against a troll. Seraph began threading her way between the men, who dropped away as soon as they saw who it was.

Lightning flashed and hit the troll. It rolled its eyes and shook its head, but other than that, the lightning did nothing. But while it was distracted an arrow found its target and the troll took several steps back with another of those agonized cries. It reached one of its arms up to bat at its face and pluck the arrow from its nose slit. It held the arrow up and shook it before throwing it aside and striding forward with a ground-shaking stride that boomed almost as loud as its scream.

Lehr, standing to Rinnie's left, nocked another arrow and waited.

The troll hit Seraph's warding and magic leapt up in a fine display of light and color and held it off. The creature stayed for a long count of two before falling back, covering its eyes; but it was obvious to Seraph, if to no one else, that the warding wouldn't hold it back much longer.

“Rinnie!” shouted Seraph, as soon as she was close enough that they might hear her over the storm. She stopped as close to her daughter as she dared. “Rinnie, let the storm go. Your lightning won't hurt it, and it prefers dark to light. Lehr, in the ear, eye, nostril, and ventral slit—if you can, get someone to make flaming arrows for you. A troll is partially immune to magic, so
I
can't set it afire, but real fire sometimes works.” Sometimes.

Though her glow hadn't dimmed, Rinnie must have heard what Seraph had said: the rain and wind died, leaving an uncanny silence in its wake, but the storm and all its potential violence still hung overhead malevolently.

“There are a few spells that can hurt it,” said Hennea.

In her anxiety for her family, Seraph had almost forgotten the other Raven.

She turned to see Hennea circle her hands as if she held a large globe, then make a tossing motion. As soon as it crossed the wards, her spell turned into a ball of fire so hot it burned
blue. It hit the troll in the middle of its forehead with an impact Seraph could hear from where she stood.

Blinded by the light of the fire, the troll pulled the molten ball from its forehead, and at its touch the magic fell into nothing, leaving only a great blackened area in the troll's face. The troll howled its rage.

“You have to teach me that one,” said Seraph. “But it's not going to help us much. They hunt by scent and hearing. Blinding's only going to make it angry.”

Someone had heard her tell Lehr to use fire; she heard a voice cry, “We need flaming arrows!” Someone else yelled, “Eyes, mouth, and private parts, boys.”

The troll charged the warding again. Seraph dodged past Skew to give the ward more power, ignoring Tier's shout of consternation. The troll saw her, too, and began wading through the barrier of magic to get to her.

Trolls were smarter than they looked.

A great mountain cat leapt onto the troll from the top of a tree, landing on the top of its head and sending it staggering back away from Seraph and the warding.

Jes,
thought Seraph. A black mountain cat was one of the forms that Jes favored—and a normal great mountain cat would never have attacked a troll.

The enraged cry of the cat joined the howl of the troll. Before the troll could regain its balance, Gura joined in the attack, going for the tendon on the back of the troll's ankle.

The troll kicked out wildly and caught Gura with the edge of its foot. The dog yipped once and rolled a dozen feet to stop against a tree. He lay still.

Jes braced his hind legs on the back of the troll's neck and sank his front claws deep into the top of its forehead, then pulled back—forcing the troll's mouth open.

A troll's joints worked differently than most animals. It had no neck, and its lower jaw was fixed in relation to its body—so it chewed by moving the upper portion of its head rather than the lower. By taking control of the head, Jes's hold gave him effective control of the whole troll.

It was clever, Seraph acknowledged, but how did Jes know enough of trolls to use its weaknesses against it?

Someone had listened to her because a flaming arrow sank
into the troll's open mouth. Once she turned her attention to it, Seraph realized she'd been smelling burning oil for a few minutes. She turned to see the double handful of archers, including Lehr, were all shooting flaming arrows, which, inexpertly wrapped in oiled rags were awkward to shoot.

A number of the arrows smoldered in the damp ground in front of the troll, but the arrow she watched Lehr loose flew to lodge in between the troll's gaping jaws, just beside the first one that had hit it. He sent two more to follow the first in quick succession. Each hit was followed by a round of cheers from the rest of the villagers, who were beginning to find the target with their own arrows.

Maddened, the troll fought to close its mouth. Jes's claws slid through the tough skin, opening huge gashes, but also allowing the troll to close its mouth. It dropped to the ground and rolled, forcing Jes to leap clear. The smell of scorched flesh rose from the troll as it rolled again, trying to put out the fire of a dozen arrows.

The panther grunted and backed away until it stood near Gura, who was rising unsteadily to his feet. As soon as it was obvious that the troll was distracted by the fire that was eating it, the big cat disappeared into the woods, driving the dog before it.

Seraph heard Hennea murmur, “That's it, Jes. Away from us for the moment. The last thing we need is for anyone to be more panicked than they already are.”

The wind began slowly, then gusted suddenly, fanning the small flames caused by stray arrows that had been slowly dying in the storm-dampened grass. Someone, it must have been Hennea, used magic to snuff out the fires.

“Rinnie,” Seraph said in a biting voice. “That's enough.”

But the sharp tones that sometimes worked did nothing as power shook Rinnie's small body.

“Is something wrong?” said Tier.

“Call her, Tier,” she said. “Quickly.”

“Rinnie?” he said.

“Not like that,” Seraph said. “Like you called Skew the night the bear got into the barn. She's riding the storm, and it'll kill her unless you can summon her back.”

He didn't make her explain further.

“Rinnie,”
he said, his voice somehow carrying the reverberating power of the thunder.