The Pixilated Peeress (31 page)

             
"Nonsense, Thorolf!" snapped Yvette. "A man as able as you can surely cleanse that nest of vipers with
out going through your tedious Rhaet
ian legalisms!"

             
"I thank you for the compliment," said Thorolf,
"but I fear you overstate mine abilities. I'm no demigod, like that fellow Zorius in your Dualistic religion
—
the one they sacrificed. What's your True Faith, by the way?"

             
She shrugged. "I bend to local beliefs and preju
dices, having no fanatical faith of mine own. But why can't you lead the trolls through the tunnels, burst in upon Parthenius and his creatures, and slaughter the lot? If Orlandus be dead, they'll have no w
i
zard to ward them with spells."

             
"I have broached the idea," said Thorolf. "Wok re
fused it as too risky."

             
"But that was ere Orlandus' death, was't not? Now you'd have a better chance of striking quickly."

             
"Much depends," Thorolf explained, "on my fa
ther's persuading the Senate to recognize the trolls as human."

             
"But that might take months, whilst your politicians trade favors and strike deals! I'll not endure to be mewed up here amongst these stinking ape-men
—
"

             
"Watch your tongue!" Thorolf snappe
d in Helladic, the international language of scholars. "Some under
stand you."

             
"I
care not! I gat no sleep last night, jammed in with a lot of trolls, snoring and stinking, and betimes old Wok awakening to futter one or another of's wives, whilst the res
t looked on and made ribald comments
—
I suppose on his performance, if I could have under
stood their hoggish speech. He asked me if I expected the same service and seemed relieved when I did assure him that I did not. He explained that he was willing to
t
up me as a matter of simple hospitality, albeit he found me repulsive." She gave a little sputter of laughter. "But you can perceive why life in troll-land has for me no allure."

             
"Oh, come, Countess," said Berthar soothingly. "We shall get better sleepin
g arrangements. Whilst we be in exile here, ye can help me to search for my sal
amanders
—
"

             
"Oh, bugger your little lizards!" cried Yvette. "I'll not abide such treatment
—
"

             
"My dear," said Berthar with a pained expression, "I have explained that they be
not lizards
—
"

             
"But I will
not
be cooped and confined
—
"

             
"Sorry, your Highness," said Thorolf, "but I know not what else you can do."

             
He started to walk away. Then something soft and moist struck him smartly in the back of his head. As he spun around,
he clapped a hand to the spot. His hand came away with a flattened gob of barley por
ridge.

             
Yvette, still seated beside Berthar, dug her spoon into the porridge bowl. She held up the spoon, grasping the stem with the thumb and two fingers of her right hand while with those of her left she pulled back the bowl of the spoon, so that it acted like
t
he throwing arm of a one-armed catapult. Furious, Thorolf shouted:

             
"If you do that again, I'll spank your pretty pink arse!"

             
"You wouldn't dare!" she cried, raising the spoon to take aim.

             
"Try me!" barked Thorolf.

             
"My lady!" said Berthar, grasping
her arm. "I beg you! We dare not fall out; we must stand together
—
"

             
He broke off as a troll rushed into the village, shout
ing: "Foe! Foe! Foe!"

             
"To arms!" roared Wok. The village burst into fran
tic motion. Females snatched up their cubs. Males dove f
or their tents, to emerge with weapons. All yelled at the tops of their powerful voices until the noise was deafening.

             
Berthar and Yvette sprang up, the latter crying: "Where? Whence come they?"

             
Shading his eyes, Thorolf peered about until he saw a fla
sh of the sun on armor, along the trail to Zurshnitt. "Yonder!" he cried. "I'll get my crossbow."

-

             
Wok hurried the trolls into a ragged line athwart the path of the oncoming force. As the figures grew larger, Thorolf saw that in their van marched three
ogres, each half again as tall as a man and bearing a huge club. Behind them came Parthenius, in helmet and half-armor of plate. After him strode a score or so of chain-clad guards from Castle Zurshnitt in Sophonomy's sky-blue surcoats. To Yvette and Ber
t
har, Thorolf growled:

             
"We need not seek out Parthenius and his merry men; they come to us."

             
Thorolf felt a tug on his clothing and realized that his dagger was being drawn from its sheath. He turned to see Yvette secreting the weapon in the cloak she h
ad taken from the renegade Carinthian.

             
"Yvette!" he exclaimed. "What dost? Mean you to stab me?"

             
"Nay, Thorolf dear. I shall need it in case that swine again lays hands on me."

             
Beside Parthenius came another figure who,
being small, Thorolf did not at once recognize. This turned out to be the fat little treasurer of the Magicians' Guild, Avain.

             
Real ogres, Thorolf knew, could mash flat ten times their number of human beings, or even trolls. But he had suspicions of the
se. By looking hard, he could see the twinkle of the sun on the guardsmen's armor through the ogres' scaly bodies; Bardi's spell had not worn off. He turned to Wok, saying:

             
"Chief, those ogres are mere illusions, cast by
—
"

             
At that instant, Wok shouted:
"Sorcery! Flee!"

             
"Wait!" cried Thorolf. But as one troll, the horde turned and ran, bounding up the slope above the vil
lage. In a trice Thorolf found himself standing with Berthar and Yvette alone, facing the oncomers. The Sophonomist guards bore sword
s, pikes, halberds, and bows. When the ogres loomed over the trio, Parthenius cried:

             
"Halt! Sergeant Thorolf and Countess Yvette, I want you twain; the beast-keeper I care not about. Will ye yield quietly? 'Tis useless to resist; if ye essay to flee, as
did the trolls, my archers will bring you down."

             
"What does Doctor Avain in your ranks?" shouted Thorolf. '

             
"He is our new Psychomagus. Do ye yield?"

             
Rage had been building up in Thorolf. It seemed to him that, no matter what he did, the Sophonomists
were always thwarting him in one way or another. Now, al
though cooler reflection might have indicated some other course, he whipped the crossbow to his shoulder. The bow thumped; the bolt whistled through one of the illusory ogres and buried itself in t
h
e midriff of Avain, whom Thorolf judged to be his most dangerous single foe. With a shriek, the little magician doubled over and sank down. The three ogres vanished.

             
Thorolf snatched another bolt from its case and stooped to put his foot in the stirrup t
o recock the weapon, hoping for a shot at Parthenius. Before he could complete the task, the flat of a halberd caught him on the side of his head and knocked him sprawling. He sat up, shaking the stars out of his vision. Two of Parthenius' crew had laid h
a
nds on Yvette, despite her struggles, and two more had seized Berthar.

             
As Thorolf rose, still groggy, guards tried to lay hands on him likewise. He knocked one down and grabbed for his sword, but others clutched at him from all sides. His struggles sent
them staggering back and forth, but they hung on. Parthenius stood before him, grinning. The man took off his helmet, exposing a mass of coppery curls.

             
"I
had thought ye'd make a prime diaphane," grated Parthenius, "wherefore I told my men to take you a
live. But ye've slain our new magus as well as the old. To keep you captive until we find another were too risky, knowing what a mighty and self-willed wight ye be. The Countess were easier to handle." He turned to a halberdier. "Off with his head!"

             
The
guards holding Thorolf tried to bend him down to afford a fair target for the ax blade, but Thorolf con
tinued to struggle. Parthenius said:

             
"Come now, Sergeant, wouldn't ye prefer a quick, clean chop to being slowly whittled to death with knives? If ye
persist in your contimacy, the latter fate shall be yours."

             
"Futter you!" snarled Thorolf.

             
"Ho!" shouted a guard. "Look yonder!"

             
The trail from Zurshnitt skirted the village and con
tinued along the mountainside. Along the trail, from the direction o
pposite the city, came another troop of armed men, about equal to that led by Parthenius. At the head of the column rode a man on a huge white horse. He bore a lance with a flag near its tip, display
ing the red boar on a white ground of the Duchy of Land
a
i.

             
"Form double line!" shouted Parthenius. "Archers on the flanks! Do not let go of the prisoners!"

             
The mounted man, also in plate, halted his horse and turned his head to shout, in the accents of Carinthia: "Deploy right and left!" He handed his lance
to one man, dismounted, and gave his reins to another.

             
The column split, half the men filing to the right and half to the left, until they formed another double rank facing the Sophonomists. The man in plate stepped for
ward and, like Parthenius, remove
d his helmet. He showed a head of graying blond hair with an expanse of pink bare scalp rising through it like a mountaintop above the clouds. Below it were a pair of bulging blue eyes and a large red blob of a nose. While his chin was shaven, he wore a h
u
ge mustache, curled at the ends like the horns of a buffalo. He addressed Parthenius:

             
"Sirrah, who are ye who holds my affianced bride? Release her forthwith, or ye shall die the death!"

             
"I," said the other, "am the Reverend Doctor Par
thenius, Prophet
-in-Chief of the mighty Church of Sophonomy. As for the woman, she was happily rising in the ranks of my church when this miscreant
—
" he in
dicated Thorolf "
—
snatched her away. I have rescued her. And who in the seven hells be ye, to question me?"