The Troll King (The Bowl of Souls Book 9) (14 page)

The ogres took up the chant and Crag laughed as he walked into the circle to join the rock giant. He reached up, grabbed Charz’s arm with his good one, and yelled. “Crag is chief again!”

The chanting continued for several minutes. While Crag and Charz shared in their glory, Fist walked over to the stalagmite throne. He found Old Falog crouched next to it, clutching his arm and staring bitterly at the unconscious netherhulk that lay on the ground.

“Can I heal your arm?” Fist asked.

The newly deposed chief stood and made to sit back down on his throne, but thought better of it. Acidic saliva and blood had pooled on the seat and sizzled as it slowly ate into the dense stone. Falog settled for pulling his red fur cloak more tightly around him and arching an eyebrow.

“Healings is the women’s job,” the ex-chief said. He started to call out to his harem, but the females had already disappeared, leaving their goblin tooth tiaras behind.

Falog’s expression drooped even further. The ogre reached up with his good arm and pulled off his orc-tooth crown. He dropped it into the puddle of acid on the seat of the throne where it immediately began to blacken and hiss.

Why fix him
? Squirrel asked from his perch on Fist’s shoulder.
He is bad
.

He doesn’t have to be
, Fist replied.

“In my tribe anyone can heal,” Fist replied. “You saw how I fixed your arm earlier.”

“It breaked too easy,” the old ogre grumped.

“You did that on purpose,” Fist reminded him. “Besides, that was because you pulled your arm away before I was finished. This time I will fix it right. Your arm will be as strong as it ever was.”

Falog blinked. “Why do you have a food on your shoulder?”

Do not heal him
, Squirrel commanded.

He does not know any better
. “He is not a food,” Fist said patiently. “His name is Squirrel and he is part of my tribe.”

The old ogre cocked his head in suspicion. “You do not sound like a ogre anymore. You talk like the little peoples.”

Ogres didn’t bother with terms like humans and elves and dwarves. They were all just ‘little people’. To the ogre tribes, those races were distant and rarely seen and if they were, they were almost always enemies. Fist wanted to change that.

“I learned a lot from those ‘little people’ while I was gone, Falog,” Fist said. “They taught me many things.”

“Oh, these magics you use,” Old Falog surmised, giving him a knowing nod. “You taked it from them.”

“No. The magic is mine,” Fist corrected. “I just didn’t know I had it when I left here.”

It was actually more complicated than that. The reason he hadn’t known was that his magic had been very weak when he’d left. Fist’s abilities had been strengthened because Justan’s magic was so high. It was one of the benefits of the bond.

Fist saw no reason to explain that to the ogre though. “But the humans did teach me that magic is for more than killing.” He stuck out his hand and extended threads of air from his palm, causing a soft orb of light to form. “It can bring light.” Falog’s eyes widened at the orb’s soft glow and Fist added, “And it can heal. Let me fix your arm. It does you no good to keep it broken. Not anymore.”

They were interrupted as Maryanne and Rufus joined them. The rogue horse bent down and sniffed at the netherbeast, while the gnome warrior frowned at the old ogre. “What are you doing, Fist?”

“I am trying to heal Old Falog’s arm, but he won’t let me,” Fist explained.

Falog frowned. “Why would Big Fist, the ogre mage, help Old Falog? You hate me. You maked me not the chief anymore.”

“You were never supposed to be chief,” Fist pointed out. “You were supposed to watch over the tribe until Crag returned.”

Falog spat. “I was a better chief than Crag. I maked the Thunder People strong.”

“Let his arm stay broken. He ain’t worth it,” Maryanne said.

Fist placed a calming hand on her shoulder and nodded at the ogre. “You’re right, Old Falog. You did make the tribe stronger. In some ways I think you made it better. Crag had already started letting in the rogue ogres, but you united the tribes. You brought them all in. If you hadn’t, many of these ogres that are still alive would have been taken by the evil.”

Falog was taken aback by Fist’s unexpected compliment. “Then why did you make your giant fight me?”

“You imprisoned members of our tribe!” Maryanne said.

“And you were about to kill Crag,” Fist said. “I had no choice. Now are you going to let me heal you or not?”

Hesitantly, Old Falog removed his arm from under his cloak and held it out to him. Fist gripped his wrist and numbed the ogre’s pain, then twisted his arm so that the bones were set in place. He sent threads of water and earth into the bone, sealing the broken pieces together.

The ogre sucked in a hiss as the intense tingle of the healing took place, but it was soon over. Broken bones were easier to repair than gashes or open wounds. There was much less detail work involved.

Fist let go and the old ogre clenched his fist and moved his fingers. A smile touched Falog’s lips.

“There is one thing I would ask of you, Falog,” Fist said.

The ex-chief narrowed his eyes. “What?”

“Keep being a good leader to the Thunder People,” Fist replied.

“What?” Maryanne said.

“There are many ogres new to the tribe. They have heard of Crag, but they don’t know him. They already respect you,” Fist said. “Help Crag keep the Thunder People strong. The evil will keep coming. They will need you.”

“Crag will not want my help. Not now,” Falog replied.

“I sure wouldn’t,” Maryanne agreed.

“Stop helping me,” Fist said out of the side of his mouth. To Falog, he said, “I will talk to Crag for you. Think about it. Is it so bad being the second most powerful ogre in the tribe?”

To Old Falog, who had been imagining himself at the bottom of the hierarchy for the first time in decades, it didn’t sound that bad at all.

“Ooh!” huffed Rufus, pointing at the vanquished netherbeast.
What about this one
?

That is a good question.
“What about Mog?” Fist asked Falog. “Do you think I should heal him?”

“That doesn’t seem like a very good idea,” Maryanne said.

Old Falog eyed her, looking her up and down. “Your skinny women is right.”

The gnome warrior bared her teeth and Fist grasped her shoulder again.

“If Mog waked up now, he would be mad,” Falog said. “You would have to fight him again.”

“Where did you find him, anyway?” Fist asked.

“He comed running into the territory one day just after Crag left,” the old ogre replied. “There was another big giant like him chasing him. It had the evil in it, but it wasn’t dead yet. Just screaming. It runned over me and stomped on my arm.”

“So that’s how you broke it,” Fist said.

Falog shrugged. “I telled the others to help him kill it. Then we smashed it up. It burned for a long time.”

“And he decided to stay?” Fist asked.

“He had nowhere else to go. He was lost,” Falog explained. “Mog seed my broke arm and knowed it was his fault. So he promised to be my fighter and I letted him stay. He has helped us fight the evil many times.”

Fist looked down at the netherhulk. “When he wakes, tell him that I am offering to heal him. However, if he attacks anyone in my tribe, I will not be so kind.”

“I will not allow him to,” Falog promised.

“Good.” Fist turned away from the old ogre and noted that most of the crowd had dispersed. It had grown dark outside, but Fist saw the backs of Charz and his father as they sat in front of the cave mouth, looking out over the camp. Fist walked towards them.

“Shouldn’t we go free Qenzic and Locksher now?” Maryanne asked, keeping pace with him. “Lyramoor disappeared a while ago and he’s so paranoid about being enslaved that I’m worried he might do something rash.”

“Yes. That’s been bothering me too,” said Fist. “I need to speak to Charz and Crag first and then we’ll go.”

There were a half circle of ogres sitting on the ground facing the two of them when Fist arrived. Most of them were unfamiliar to Fist, but he remembered a few of them as Old Falog’s supporters from earlier.

Charz was speaking in a slightly slurred voice, “You know what I could uthe right now, Crag? A big old barrel of grog. It’d really help numb my nerveths.”

“You has talked about this grog many times on our journey, giant,” Crag replied. “I would like to try it some time.”

“No you wouldn’t, father,” Fist said. “Not if you reacted to it the way that I did.”

Ogres didn’t have any fermented beverage traditions. The only alcohol Fist had drank, Lenny’s firewater, had given him a severe allergic reaction. Master Coal had suggested he never touch any liquor ever again.

 “Oh, you done talking with the loser, Fist?” Charz asked. The giant turned to look at him.

Fist grimaced. Maryanne gasped. Rufus let out a concerned, “Ooh! Ooh!”

Ouch
, said Squirrel.

Once Fist could find the words, he said, “Charz, that looks horrible.”

The wounds that the giant had received during the fight looked much worse than they had before. What had once been a blackened line in his skin was now a deep glistening fleshy wound. It stretched from his jawline up the left side of his face, across his forehead, and down to mid-cheek. In addition, half of his lips on the right side of his face were melted away from when he had bitten into the netherhulk’s tongue. Fist had no desire to see what the inside of his mouth looked like.

“Don’t need to sthee it to know that,” Charz replied glumly. “It burnth like blazeth right now, but it’ll heal. It always doth. That athid wath jutht thome thtrong thtuff. It only thtopped thizzling a minute ago.”

“Would you like me to try and help it heal?” Fist asked. It was difficult to replace tissue that heavily damaged, but he could at least help it to scab up.

“Naw. I’ll wait. My magic always doth it right. I do want my pendant back, though,” Charz replied.

“Oh.” Fist had forgotten he was wearing it. He pulled the iron chain up over his head and handed it back to the giant. “Here.”

“Thankth,” Charz replied, slipping it over his own head and wincing as the chain dragged against the side of the wound. “You ready to go free our boys?”

“Yes, I just wanted to talk to Crag,” Fist replied, looking down at his father. “I wanted to say sorry about your arm. Can I heal it for you now?”

“The women was just going to get some medicine,” Crag said, which Fist translated as, ‘they had just gone to chew some plants to spit on it’. Most of the Thunder People believed strongly in the tradition of ogre medicine. Fortunately, Crag had already experienced Fist’s healing first hand. He lifted his arm, which had been set in a crude splint; just some straight sticks tied to the arm with strips of leather. “So yes. Fix it for me.”

Fist did so, pouring his magic into the arm and repairing it as he had done for Falog. He waited until he was finished to ask, “Crag, I have a request to make of you.”

Crag grinned as he worked his fingers and began pulling off the splint. The ogres watched with frightened amazement at how quickly Fist had fixed the injury. “Yes, Fist. Anything for my ogre mage son!”

“I want you to take Old Falog back as your advisor,” Fist said. Crag’s grin turned to a scowl and Fist added, “I know he tried to kill you, but-.”

“Fist! You do not tell the chief of the Thunder People how to run his tribe. You has your own tribe,” Crag interrupted. He shook his head and pounded the fist of his newly healed arm into the palm of his other hand experimentally. “But I was going to do that anyway. Old Falog is smart and the new Thunder Peoples trust him.”

“Oh,” Fist said, surprised at his father’s grasp of the situation.

“Look at this people, Fist,” Crag said, pointing out at the enormous camp that gleamed in the darkness. “He did good when we was gone. We is bigger. We is better. And now that you is here, we can kill the evil.”