The Troll King (The Bowl of Souls Book 9) (2 page)

Nod grinned. “I can see that this will take some explaining. Tell you what. I’ll fill you in while you get dressed.”

“I am dressed,” she said.

“True, but you ain’t wearing that. Here.” He lifted the bag that he had dropped on the floor and tossed it to her. “Put them on.”

Elise caught the bag and wrinkled her nose as she looked inside. “These are servant’s clothes.”

“
Yeah, well
how else am I gonna get you out of here? What’ll folks think if they see me trying to take the imprisoned bloody ex-queen out of the palace?”

“I’m leaving?” she asked, eyes wide. The idea hadn’t occurred to her.

“We got places to go, don’t we? Lots to do,” he replied. “I’d disguise you better if we had the time. Once we’re far gone, we’ll stop and cut your hair. Probly should dye it too, I wager.”

“Cut my hair?” Elise said in shock. Where exactly was this man planning to take her? “And why should I go anywhere with you?”

“You ain’t burning to leave?” Nod said in disbelief. He shook his head. “Sorry. It’s me and my bad manners again. Of course you’d be wanting to see my credentials.”

The red-haired man lifted his left hand and made a fist. Blackness swirled across the back of his hand, revealing a dark rune. Elise licked her lips. This man had been named at the Dark Bowl.

The man grinned. “I see you recognize who sent me. Now get changed.”

Elise pulled the clothes from the bag. They were wrinkled and stained. He must have pulled them from a laundry bin. “Turn around then.”

He sneered at her. “Sorry, I’m not the sort of man turns around when a perfectly good-looking woman’s getting naked.”

“I insist,” she said with a glower. “Otherwise you can leave without me.”

“I counter your insistence with insistence of my own,” he replied with a short bow. “You don’t have a choice if you want to see your babies again. Don’t worry. Our mutual master ain’t gonna want me touching you. My eyes however . . .” He snickered again. “See what they want to see.”

She turned away from him with a scowl and began unlacing her dress as quickly as she could. “So tell me, Nod. Just how did Demetrius talk the nobles into crowning him king?”

“He did that by becoming a noble himself,” the man replied.

She could feel his eyes on her bare back as she lifted the servant’s dress. “Impossible. There hasn’t been a new noble house created in centuries.”

“Yeah, that would be a problem. Guess that explains why he went and got himself adopted.”

“Adopted? By who?” Elise knew the noble houses better than anyone and she couldn’t imagine any of them allowing an uncouth commoner soldier like Demetrius into their ranks, no matter how much his prestige had risen during the war.

“Why the long lost heir of house Vriil,” said Nod.

Elise spun to face him. She wasn’t completely finished putting the new dress on, but that didn’t seem to matter at the moment. “You mean Willum?”

Ewzad had told her about the boy child of his sister that had disappeared during his parents’ execution. Ewzad had looked for him for years before assuming him dead.

“That’s right. Willum Vriil, resurfaced during the war. Evidently he had joined the academy and become quite the hero,” Nod replied. “Once his secret got out, the nobles demanded that he take up his inheritance and become one of them, you know. Instead he sent a letter announcing that he had adopted old Demetrius and appointed him as steward of the Vriil lands.”

“He adopted Demetrius via letter? And the nobles stood for that?” she said in amazement.

“Of course the houses squabbled over it for a few weeks,” he said. “But Demetrius is really popular among the common folk. He did liberate them from you and your dead husband after all.”

Elise quivered with rage as she put on the sturdy boots that were in the bag. It wasn’t anger at Demetrius or even the other nobles. It was anger at herself. If only she hadn’t wasted the months after the war descending into madness.

“Kind of funny when you think about it,” he added. “All that trouble they went through to get rid of one King Vriil, just to crown another.”

“I could have done something about this,” she said. “I know how to pull strings. I could have salvaged the situation. Perhaps even held onto my throne.”

“Yeah? Well you didn’t,” Nod said. He gripped the edges of the door and pried it slowly open. “Now let’s go. The master’s got plans.”

“Perhaps I do have need of someone like you,” the Troll King said. He stood from his crumbling throne, leaving a thin slimy residue behind.

Mellinda, who had been leaning over him, was forced to take a step back to keep from being knocked over. The king’s muscular seven-foot frame towered over her and as he peered down at her with his mismatched eyes, she felt an electric thrill. To think that her work over a thousand years ago had led to this person.

The Troll King was a living dichotomy. Like all of the trollkin his body was part troll and part something else, but his deformations were quite distinct. The right side of his body was handsome and human, while his left side was frightening and trollish. His left eye glowed a dull red, the left side of his mouth was overly wide and filled with sharp teeth, and the fingers of his left hand were long and tipped with wicked black claws. Somewhere, he had found an ancient garment that hadn’t completely rotted away. It was made out of what had once been rich green silk and was draped over one shoulder and belted at his waist.

His voice was a raspy tenor only partially slurred by the deformation of his mouth. “Come with me, Snake Woman. I would take you to the Mother’s womb.”

Mellinda held back a retort. It was the third time he had referred to her as a snake. If the fool had any idea who she really was, he wouldn’t dare. He and his people should all be bowing and scraping to her.

Nevertheless, she forced a smile and gave him a bow of her own. “Of course, my king.” Mellinda meekly stood aside as the king walked towards the rear of his chamber.

“
He’s right, you know. You are a snake
,” said another, unwelcome voice from within her mind. “
At least he knows it before letting you in. I wish I would have known
.”

Her reply to this second voice was mental,
You should know by now that your insults mean nothing to me, Arcon
.

“
I bet it’s the rings that help him see it
,” Arcon observed. “
You give away your true nature with every movement
.”

The comment stung but Mellinda did not let her irritation show. It had been weeks since she had turned the power of the rings inward and she still didn’t quite have full control over her new body’s eccentricities. The rings had turned her limbs snakelike. Keeping them under control required a constant amount of concentration and Arcon did his best to undermine her efforts whenever possible.

You seek to distract me, but your voice is as a mere buzzing of a fly. Easily ignored
, she replied.

“
In that case you won’t mind if I rattle off a list of other animals I could compare you to
,” Arcon said with amusement. “
Let’s see.
Vulture, slug, muskrat, moonrat, mole, salamander, dog, wolf, goat . . .
”

Mellinda gritted her teeth. This was another of Arcon’s techniques to annoy her. When regular insults didn’t work, he fell back on chanting inane lists of words. Ridiculous. He should have learned by now that his prattle had no effect.

“You c-coming?” asked Murtha, the king’s part dwarf assistant. Her greenish lips were pulled back in a distrustful grimace, revealing a mouth filled with rows of sharp teeth.

Mellinda realized that she was still standing by the throne while the others were waiting at a doorway on the rear of the throne room. “Of course,” Mellinda said, her cheeks reddening with embarrassment.

“This way,” said the Troll King. “The Mother awaits.”

The king exited the throne room and Murtha gave Mellinda an assessing glare before following at his heels. Murtha wore a ragged dress made of animal skins. She was the only trollkin Mellinda had seen wearing a dress. Perhaps she saw herself as the king’s consort? Whatever she was, the half-dwarf held some importance to the king. Mellinda knew that if she couldn’t win the creature over sooner or later she would have to kill her.

Mellinda stepped out of the throne room and onto a crumbling stone balcony. She moved to the balcony’s edge, pausing for a moment to take in the view. The Troll King’s throne room was at the top of the Axis Palace, the tallest building in Malaroo. It was a pyramidal structure made of enormous rock slabs carved by Roo artisans and the home of generations of Roo High Priestesses. From this vantage point she could see the whole of KhanzaRoo as well as most of the swamps surrounding it.

KhanzaRoo had once been one of the greatest cities in the known lands. A marvel of engineering, it was built on top of unstable shifting swampland. Yet it had thrived. This was because Roo people had made a city that breathed with the swamp. The permanent structures had been made with foundations sunk deep into the earth below, while the smaller homes and businesses had been made out of wood and anchored to the grassy islands that shifted with the waters. It had all been linked together by rope bridges and rafts that floated on top of the water and could be moved and re-anchored when needed.

But those glory days were a thousand years gone. The wooden structures and rafts had long rotted away and been reclaimed by the swamp. Now only the crumbling remains of the most well-built stone buildings marked the location of the once prosperous city. The current state of KhanzaRoo would have left her with a mixture of sadness and satisfaction, had she not been filled with irritation at Arcon’s incessant droning.

“
Pig, tortoise, horse, cow, frog, rabbit, mountain cat, mist bronto . . .
”

“Is something troubling you, Mellinda?” asked the Troll King. The tall leader of the trollkin was waiting for her next to a staircase that descended from the far end of the balcony. His human eye was fixed on her with curiosity.

“I am well, my king,” Mellinda assured him. This king was perceptive. She was confident that she had let no hint of her frustration touch her face. “I simply feel a bit of sadness at KhanzaRoo’s current state.”

Her words were partially true. When Mellinda was a child, KhanzaRoo had been her favorite place to visit. Then again, when Mellinda had been a goddess, she had choked and overwhelmed the city with her armies of trolls.

“
Snake
,” Arcon added, an accusatory note in his voice.

The king, unable to hear the snide comment of the human mage trapped inside of Mellinda’s mind, simply nodded in understanding. “Yes, my city is a shambles. But that will soon change. My people work hard to bring KhanzaRoo back to its glory. Already they have cleared most of the buildings of trees and vines. It will go faster as our numbers grow.”

“They have done admirably,” she said, bowing her head slightly. “And just how quickly are the trollkin growing?”

The right side of his face gave her a slight smile. “The Mother births more of us every day, but . . . you will see.”

Mellinda smiled and inclined her head again. From her short time among the trollkin, she estimated that they numbered no more than three hundred. For her army to be effective she would need more. A lot more.

The Troll King turned and descended the stairway that snaked down the palace’s terraced outer wall. As she followed the king and his assistant, Mellinda could see the result of the trollkin’s hard work. Though sections of the palace were still blanketed by vines, all of the sections in use had been completely scraped clean. The stairway, though cracked and weathered, was clear save for one place half way down where a tenacious swamp tree had grown out of the side of the palace. The trollkin had cut the offending tree down, leaving a flat stump. Its roots bored into the rock of the palace like spider legs.

They passed the stump and rounded the corner of the pyramid and Mellinda saw that the staircase continued all the way down to the base of the pyramid where a small courtyard butted up to the edge of a small lake. A distant memory entered Mellinda’s mind and she knew where they were headed.

“We are going to the High Priestess’ gardens?” she surmised pointing at the shoreline below. To call the shoreline of that lake within the swamp a garden now was a bit ridiculous. It was an overgrown tangle of vines. But once it had been full of exotic flowers and fruit trees.

The Troll King slowed his descent and looked back at her. “I do not know what this location was once called but that is where the Mother’s womb will greet us, yes.”

“Her womb is here?” Mellinda asked. She had expected it to be some distance away, further into the swamp.

“The Mother is everywhere. Her womb is wherever she wants it to be,” said Murtha, narrowing her eyes.

“
Chipmunk, ox, bear
,” added Arcon.

 “Murtha is correct,” the Troll King said. “Her womb was not always here, but she moved it once she had chosen this city for our people.”

“I see.” So she could move parts of her body great distances now? This was more evidence that the Troll Mother had changed greatly since Mellinda had last been here.

The Troll King continued walking down the stairs and Murtha let out a short hiss, before turning around and trailing after him. Mellinda caught herself chewing her lower lip. It was an old habit from her childhood that she had picked back up recently. It mainly happened when she was deep in thought and Arcon was droning on.

“
Pigeon, donkey, sparrow . . . uh, sock-.
”

Sock isn’t an animal, you idiot!
Mellinda snapped and her knees buckled, causing her legs to bow out bonelessly. She nearly fell.

Arcon laughed. “
It threw off your concentration though, didn’t it
?”

Silence!
she barked back at him mentally as she forced her legs back into proper form.
You gain nothing with your annoyances!

“
Ah, but annoying you is the only true pleasure I have left
,” Arcon replied. “
Deer, pheasant, boar, snail, worm, mouse . . .
”

Mellinda growled under her breath and pushed his voice as far to the back of her mind as she could. Unfortunately, the body was his and her grasp on his mind was slippery. The mage had learned much in his time under her control and no matter how far away she shoved him, he always found a way to come back. Oh how she wished she could tear him from her thoughts and extinguish him altogether.

As she neared the base of the stairs, the air grew thicker with humidity and her nostrils were filled with the slightly chemical scent that was unique to the Troll Swamps. She breathed it in with satisfaction, reminding herself that this was all her doing. Whatever her current petty setbacks, she was still Mellinda, the Dark Goddess; the Troll Queen. The world had once trembled at her name and it was only a matter of time before her full glory was reattained.

Two trollkin waited for them at the bottom of the stairs. One had a mangled nose, protruding fangs and cat-like ears, while the other was incredibly thin and exuded a yellowish slime. They grinned at the Troll King’s arrival and called out to him. He smiled back at them and called them out by name, patting them on the shoulders as he strode by.

Mellinda raised one eyebrow at the familiarity in which the king addressed his subjects.
This may be easier than I thought. They do not fear him
.

Arcon paused in his litany long enough to respond, “
Look at their eyes. They adore him. You put too much stock in fear
.”

She let out a soft chuckle.
You will see how easily their adoration for him fades when someone with true power comes along
.

The Troll King noted her amusement. “Do you have something to say, Snake Woman?”

Her smile slid. “No, my king. I was just admiring the rapport you have with your subjects.”

His human eye twitched and he gestured at the two trollkin. “This is Omar and Trelsk. I pulled them from the Mother’s womb two days ago.”

“Two days?” she said. “Yet they speak and move like fully formed adults.”

The two new trollkin looked at each other and the one called Trelsk said, “Why would we not speak?”

Murtha frowned. “We are all born that way, snake-k. Not like-k you weak-k humans.”

“It is a gift from the Mother,” explained the Troll King. “She teaches us in the womb so that we awaken strong and aware.”

“
They are born as adults
.” Arcon said in surprise.

Fantastic, isn’t it? They emerge able to communicate and understand orders
. Her army would be so much greater than the regular troll army she had intended to build. She just needed to make sure that they would follow her.