The Ogre Apprentice (The Bowl of Souls Book 8), page 46
Steff leapt off the trail and the Prophet disappeared into the trees. Justan stared after him for a moment, his mind working over everything he had learned. What John had suggested was easier said, than done. The world still felt small to him, like little mattered.
This is why people can’t usually stay in John’s presence for long. Artemus said. His voice sounded weaker than usual. It is sad. He is such a lonely man.
Are you alright? Justan asked.
Very tired. The elemental has been difficult, the old wizard said. It did not like the Stranger. I must retire for a time.
Justan wasn’t ready for him to leave. How did you handle being around the Prophet so long?
I looked at him as a friend. Not a god. he whispered. And when I started to feel small . . . I focused on . . . life.
Artemus’ voice faded and Justan frowned. Focus on life? How was he supposed to do that?
Ride? Gwyrtha suggested.
“That is a very good idea,” Justan replied. He hopped onto her saddle and leaned forward gripping her mane. “Make it fast.”
Yes! was her pleased reply.
His stomach gave a slight lurch as she launched herself forward. He focused on the wind that whipped past him and the sounds of the night. Then he dove into the bond, slipping into his connection with Gwyrtha. He opened himself up to her senses. Everything was heightened. She could hear each individual insect and pick out the direction of their chirping. She could smell the somewhat fishy scent of the frogs that hid in the darkness, see the different shades of the plants in the moonlight.
Gwyrtha experienced all these things and processed them at once. For a moment Justan had a glimpse of what it might like to be all knowing, to see everything. This was reality, Justan reminded himself. The minutiae of life.
Feeling a bit better, he reached out through the bond. Deathclaw, we are finished with the Prophet’s errand. We are on our way back to you.
Good, the raptoid replied.
Justan realized that Deathclaw wasn’t in Roo-Tan’lan. He wasn’t in the grove either. He was somewhere closer. Where are you? Are you tracking the nightbeast? You promised you wouldn’t go alone.
I did not, Deathclaw said. Jhonate is with me.
Just the two of you? Justan said. You were supposed to tell Xedrion.
Jhonate said that he was busy mourning Hilt and his other fallen people, Deathclaw said.
Then . . . Hilt is dead? Justan said, feeling a surge of sadness.
When we left, he was still breathing, Deathclaw assured him. The elves have been keeping him alive enough to speak, but they doubt he will live more than another day at the most.
Justan swallowed. Then there was still hope he would be able to return in time to thank him. Wait, Xedrion wouldn’t have sent just the two of you.
Deathclaw hissed. He had hoped Justan would look past that part. This was Jhonate’s idea. But do not worry. She is a capable warrior. She will not be in the way while I am defeating him.
That wasn’t good. Both of them were known for charging into difficult fights. Justan tried to think the situation through. Alright, how much of a lead does he have on you?
Perhaps two hours, but we are gaining ground. He has stopped several times, which has made it easier. He is too confident, Deathclaw hissed in amusement. He does not know we can track him.
Is he alone? Justan asked.
Deathclaw paused for a moment, unwilling to answer.
How many basilisks does he have with him? Justan pressed.
Only two, Deathclaw said. It will not be a problem.
Listen, Justan replied. Keep tracking them but do not fight them. Gwyrtha and I will head straight towards you. We will fight them together.
Deathclaw’s reply was a sullen grumble.
We are a pack, are we not? Justan reminded him.
Yes, the raptoid admitted.
Good, then tell Jhonate our plan. Gwyrtha and I are hurrying towards you, but it will probably be morning before we can catch up. Now which direction is he going?
Right towards you, Deathclaw replied.
A smile appeared on Justan’s face. So Vahn was following his trail from earlier that day. He would have no idea that Justan was on his way back along the same trail. This was their turn to ambush him.
Good. Keep me informed. We will pinch him between us. He won’t be able to escape.
An acceptable plan, Deathclaw replied after a moment. I will tell her.
Justan continued into the night, knowing it would be several hours before he was able to come up against the assassin. The rogue horse’s stores of energy were still very deep, so he pulled some for himself and sent some to Deathclaw. It had been an arduous day and they would need all the strength they could get.
He entered the bond and reached out to Fist. The ogre responded right away. He was lying down in a small cave. Another snowstorm had hit and Maryanne and Squirrel were huddling with him under his robe. Fist was the only one of them awake. Justan sensed that he was growing quite fond of the situation.
Justan! You’re okay! Fist said in excitement. Did the nightbeast attack at the funeral?
Justan sighed. It is a long story.
Justan relayed everything that had happened and told the ogre what he had learned, unburdening himself of all the turmoil that each event had brought him. Fist listened intently and made Justan feel better as only Fist could, sharing in his grief over Beltry and Hilt and asking insightful questions at the just the perfect moments of the tale.
We should meet up with him in a few hours, Justan said. Then I can finally make this end.
I wish I could be there and fight him with you, Fist said. For Hilt and for everyone else he killed.
So do I, Justan agreed.
I don’t have much to tell you about my day, the ogre said. We have just been traveling north towards the Thunder People territory. It is not the best route. The climbs were hard and the weather has been bad. But Mistress Sarine gave Maryanne a message for me to pass along to you. It’s about Vahn.
Really? That was something he hadn’t expected. What did she say?
She has been researching his name, trying to find any records of him from the past, Fist replied. Today she found something. It was in a book on great villains through the ages. Vincent found it actually. He overheard her discussing Vahn and remembered the reference.
Good old Vincent, Justan said, smiling.
The chapter he found it in was actually about Mellinda. Fist noted Justan’s stunned silence. I was surprised too. Evidently while Mellinda was at the height of her power, she had gone on a rampage through the kingdoms, finding anyone or anything with powers and stealing them. Then once word got out that she had driven the Roo people out of their home and raised an army of trolls, the leaders of the different countries panicked, thinking they might be next.
They found the most skilled and talented assassin that they could, a famous man named Vahn who used basilisks to help him in his attacks. Mistress Sarine says the scholar that wrote the book listed him as ‘rumored to be a nightbeast’. The leaders hired him to kill Mellinda, who I guess was then calling herself the Troll Queen.
I wonder what happened there? Justan said.
It’s actually kind of funny, Fist said. The book says that Vahn started by sending basilisks at her. The story says that twenty of them were sent. Sarine isn’t too sure about that number though, because the man that wrote it seemed to think that basilisks could fly and that they roamed in packs of twenty.
Alright, so he sent a ‘lot’ of basilisks, Justan replied. Then what?
She killed them all. None of their disguises worked and she forced them to take whatever shapes she wanted, then ripped their brains out so that they became statues. Maryanne said that Mellinda turned one of them into a big vase and kept flowers in it.
Justan couldn’t help but laugh at that.
Finally, Vahn decided to attack her himself. She captured him and used her magic to break his will. According to the story she kept him around as a toy, showing him off to people and making him change shapes to amuse her.
The visuals that brought in to Justan’s mind had him laughing even harder. That is . . . the best thing I have heard in a long time.
I thought so too, Fist said laughing along with him. But this is also kind of scary. That is the last time Vahn is mentioned. The book went on to tell how Mellinda was destroyed. It got some of those details wrong, though.
So we don’t know what happened to him after that, Justan said. We know she didn’t kill him, but that’s it?
This is why it’s scary, Fist said. The last time he was seen was with her. Then he isn’t heard from for hundreds of years. But this thing in the mountains acts an awful lot like Mellinda. It drew the moonrats to it. What if it really is her up here? What if she sent him?
A chill went up Justan’s back. Is that was Sarine thinks? What about Locksher? Does he think that the evil up there is Mellinda?
He still isn’t sure, Fist said. But he hopes to know soon. He will make it to the Thunder People territory before we do. Wizard Beehn told Sarine that they should be there tomorrow.
Justan let out a slow breath. By then this should be over.
Good luck, Fist said. Please be safe.
You too, Justan said.
Justan opened his eyes. The moon had gone down a long time ago and the stars were starting to fade as the sky lightened with the oncoming dawn. Gwyrtha, did you hear that story?
I hope she made him turn into a poop, Gwyrtha said with a snort. Justan doubled over with laughter. He had to contact Deathclaw and share the story again.
They rode on and, as the sky brightened, Justan found some of the area familiar from the day before. Deathclaw and Jhonate were only a few miles away straight ahead of him. He knew they had to be getting close.
Just a few minutes later, Gwyrtha slowed. Basilisks. Upwind.
Justan’s heart thumped in anticipation. They were heading up a long slope. Vahn was likely on top. Deathclaw was still at least a mile away so he would have to modify his plan slightly. Okay, we have the element of surprise here. We circle around them. We’ll meet up with Deathclaw and Jhonate. Then we can come back and fight him together.
Yes, Gwyrtha agreed. The rogue horse sped back up and headed off of the road preparing to make a circuit around the monsters
Deathclaw, Justan sent. Vahn is just ahead of us. We are heading around him and coming to meet up with y-!
The ground in front of Gwyrtha rose suddenly, becoming a thick wall. She saw it at the last second and tried to go around it, but it happened too fast. The rogue horse crashed into the barrier at full speed.
Justan was launched from her saddle. The world slowed down. He saw each moment with clarity, but was unable to do anything about it. The barrier appeared to be made of stone, but from the thickness of it, had to be made up of two basilisks working together.
Justan watched the barrier split with the force of the impact. He felt a brief moment of shock and pain from Gwyrtha, then silence. As he flipped up over the wall, he saw something that appeared to be part Roo man and part stone behind the wall, bracing up against it. There was a wide smile on the man’s face. Vahn.
Justan tried to stick his legs out and brace for landing, but he couldn’t move fast enough. His legs buckled and his face smacked into the thick grassy hillside. He felt a series of small pops in his neck and continued to tumble through the grass for what seemed like ages, before he came to a stop.
Justan lay there, looking straight up at the sky, dazed as the shock of what just happened rolled over him. He had to get up. He knew he had to move. Vahn could be approaching right now. Any moment, the assassin’s head could appear right over him.
Justan! cried Deathclaw through the bond.
Justan forced himself to roll to his knees. His face was numb. He probably had a broken nose. Also, it was hard to lift his head, but he forced his body to stand.
Vahn was there, just a few yards away, smiling and clapping. He was wearing the same form he had worn on the day he had killed Yntri. “Amazing acrobatics. You could join a dwarf menagerie with those skills!”
Gwyrtha! Justan shouted, but the rogue horse didn’t answer. He reached for his swords. His hand clamped down on Peace.
The pain and shock left him, sucked away by the power of the sword. His mind flickered through the bond, searching for Gwyrtha’s presence. She was alive. Her ribcage was shattered, her right lung punctured, but she lived.
He pawed for the hilt of his right sword, but his hand came up empty. Rage was missing. It must have flown out of his scabbard while he was flipping through the air.
“Looking for this?” Vahn said, bending down and grasping the hilt of the sword. He held it away from his body, carefully raising it into the air. “Awfully heavy, don’t you think?”
“Thank you for picking that up,” Justan said and released the full amount of the sword’s pent up energy, right through the handle.
Vahn’s arm disappeared up to the shoulder, vaporized by the force of the blast. The shockwave threw the nightbeast into the grass, tumbling just as Justan had.
Justan knew that hadn’t killed Vahn. It did give him a little room to breathe, however. He slowed the world even further and quickly sent his thoughts back through the bond to heal Gwyrtha. He worked by instinct, hardly thinking as he forced his magic to seal the hole in Gwyrtha’s lung. He began knitting the broken ribs back together as fast as he was able. She also had a large contusion on her head and a concussion. There was little he could do to ease it before Vahn stood.
The nightbeast was remarkably resilient. He came back to his feet, his arm regrowing in seconds.
Justan headed for his sword.
“Stop!” Vahn commanded. “Or they kill her.”
The two basilisks that had made up the barrier had reformed into monstrous insect-like creatures and stood over the rogue horse with spear-like limbs pointed towards her.
“I don’t like that sword,” Vahn continued. “I say we fight without it.”
“You look shorter,” Justan remarked. He took a moment to probe his own body for injuries. The results weren’t promising. He had a sprained ankle, a few hairline fractures along his ribs, a sprained neck, and a long gash across the bridge of his nose. It was a good thing he had Peace to take his pain away because he probably wouldn’t be able to move much otherwise.
A ripple of anger rolled across the nightbeast’s face, but he played it off with a chuckle. “A minor setback. I was not aware that you could discharge your weapon from the handle.”
Deathclaw! Justan called.
Coming, the raptoid said, but he and Jhonate were still a good distance away.
Justan still had his Jharro bow strapped across his back. He wondered how many arrows Ma’am could put into the nightbeast before he got too close, but one more quick swipe over his shoulder told Justan that his arrows were also scattered across the hillside.
“Just the one sword will do, I think,” said Vahn. He reached out his hand and formed a sword of his own.
The nightbeast was now a good foot shorter than he was, but Justan knew that this wasn’t the kind of battle where size was going to make much of a difference. He pointed Peace at the nightbeast and wondered how he was possibly going to defeat Vahn when Hilt hadn’t been able to.
“Alright, Vahn,” Justan said. He had to keep him talking while he came up with a plan. “I’m down to one sword. You’re down to the size of a twelve-year-old. That should make us about even.”
“You truly are amusing,” Vahn said, not bothering to fake a laugh this time. “Your friend Sir Hilt didn’t find it quite so funny, when I killed him yesterday.”
This time Justan forced a smile. “I think you’re mistaken. Hilt made a full recovery. The elves even reattached his hand. You really should make sure people are dead before you walk away.”
Vahn raised an eyebrow. “I see. So that’s where your other bonded is. You left him back at the grove and he told you about the named warrior’s mortal wound. That’s good. The dragon’s absence makes things easier for me. Besides, I know you’re lying. Elves can’t heal a wound like that.”
“Of course they can. Elven magic has improved quite a lot in the last few centuries,” Justan cocked his head, ignoring the popping sound his neck made. “You would know that if you were around. Where has the Troll Queen been keeping you stashed all these years?”
This time the nightbeast’s laugh was genuine. “I have no idea where you have gotten this information, but it is wildly inaccurate.”
