The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King Read online

  But Deche had never been a troll village. The trolls were mountain dwellers, stone-men—miners and quarriers. Throughout their history, they traded with the other races for their food and necessities. That was their mistake, their doom.

  Dependence made them vulnerable. Myron of Yoram— the first Troll-Scorcher—could have sealed the trolls in the Kreegills and their other strongholds. He could have starved them out in a score of years. He would have needed sorcery, of course, if he'd besieged them, and sorcery would have laid waste to the Kreegills. The valleys would have become ash and dust. Deche wouldn't have been founded. I wouldn't have been born....

  So much would have been different if Myron Troll-Scorcher had been different. Not better, certainly not for Urik, which would never have risen to glory without me. Simply different. But Myron of Yoram was what he was: a vast, sweeping fool who drove the trolls out of the Kreegills with a vast, sweeping advance. He turned the stone-men into the stone-hearted fighters that his army could never again defeat.

  Later, when I was the Troll-Scorcher, it was different. Much different. But that was later.

  When I was born, the pixies were gone, the ogres and the centaurs, too. The center of the heartland—what was left of the once-green heartland after the Pixie-Blight, the Ogre-Naught, and the Centaur-Crusher had purged those races from it—belonged to humankind. The remaining wars were fought along the perimeter. Myron of Yoram fought trolls in the far northeast, where the barrens reach beyond sunrise to the middle of last night.

  Once the trolls abandoned the Kreegills, it was destiny that human farmers would clear the valleys. All the rest was destiny, too.

  After my birth, my destiny was tied to the Troll-Scorcher in ways that no one in Deche had the wisdom or magic to foresee. We weren't ignorant of our place in the Cleansing Wars. Twice a year, our grain-loaded wagons rumbled down to the plains where the Troll-Scorcher's bailiffs bought and sold. Men went down with the wagons; women, too. They gave their names to the bailiffs and got a weapon in return.

  Sometimes—not often—veterans returned to Deche. My middle brother didn't, but an uncle had, years before I was born. He'd lost one leg above the knee, the other below, to a single swipe from a troll-held axe. In time, all of his children made their way to the bailiffs. One of those cousins returned when I was ten. He had all his limbs, but his eyes were haunted, and his wits had been seared. He cried out in his dreams, and his wife would not sleep beside him. I asked him what had happened, what had he seen?

  My cousin's words frightened me. I saw what he had seen, as if it were my own memory... as it is my own memory, now. When the Troll-Scorcher slew, he slew by fire that consumed from within. That was Rajaat's sorcery: all his champions can kill anything with a thought. Each champion had and retains a unique killing way that brings terror as well as death. But I was ten and ignorant of my destiny. With frightened tears on my cheeks, I ran from my cousin to my father.

  "Don't make me go. Don't send me to the trolls! I don't want to see the fire-eyes!"

  Father held me in his arms until I was myself again. He told me there was never any shortage of folk who wanted to join the Troll-Scorcher's army. If I didn't want to fight, I could stay in Deche all my life, if I wanted to, as he, my father, had done. As I clung to him, believing his words with all my heart and taking comfort from them, Dorean joined us. Silently, she took my hand between hers and brought it to her cheek.

  She kissed my trembling fingertips.

  It was likely that Dorean was a few years older than I; no one knew for certain. She'd been born far to the east of the Kreegills, where the war between the trolls and the Troll-Scorcher was an everyday reality. Maybe she'd been born in a village. More likely she'd been born in one of the wagons that followed the army wherever it went. Then her luck ran out. Myron of Yoram, whose idea of a picket line was a man holding the thong of a sack of rancid broy, left his flank unguarded. Troll marauders nipped his ribs, and Dorean was an orphan.

  The bailiffs brought her out of danger; they did that out of their own conscience—loading their empty wagons with orphans and the wounded and bringing them back where trolls hadn't been seen in generations. Later, when the army was mine, I would remember what the bailiffs had done and reward them. But that day when I was ten and I looked beyond my father's arms, my eyes beheld Dorean's beauty for the first time, and the untimely vision of living torches was banished from my mind's eye.

  "I will stay with you, Manu."

  Surely Dorean had spoken to me before, but I had never truly heard her voice and, though I was young, I knew that I had found the missing piece of my heart.

  "I will take Dorean as my wife," I told my father, my tears and fears already forgotten. "I will build her a house beneath the cool trees, and she will give me children. You must tell Grandfather. He cannot handfast her with anyone else."

  My father laughed. He was a big man with a barrel chest. His laugh carried from one side of Deche to the other. Dorean blushed. She ran away with her hands held against her ears, but she wasn't displeased—

  And Father spoke with Grandfather.

  I had six years to fall in love with Dorean, and her with me. Six years to build a tree-shaded house. Six years, too, to perfect my wedding dance. I confess I spent more time up in the troll ruins perfecting my dance to the tunes my youngest brother piped than I did making mud bricks for the walls of Dorean's house.

  In the way of children, I'd forgotten my cousin's memories of trolls with flaming eyes. I suppose I'd even forgotten the tears that first drew Dorean to my side. But something of my mad cousin's vision must have lingered in the neglected depths of my memory. I never followed the himali wagons down to the plains, yet the trolls fascinated me, and I spent many days exploring their ruined homes high in the Kreegills.

  The script of my own race remained meaningless to me, but I deciphered the inscriptions I found on the troll monuments. I learned their names and the names of the gods they chiseled into the stone they'd quarried. I saw how they'd panicked when they saw the Troll-Scorcher's army in the valleys below them, abandoning their homes, leaving everything behind.

  Stone bowls sat on stone tables, waiting for soup that would never be served.

  Their benches were made from stone, their beds, too; I was awed by what I imagined as their strength, their hardness. In time, I identified the tattered remnants of their blankets and mattresses in the dust-catcher corners, but my awe was, by then, entrenched.

  In truth, the trolls were a placid race until Rajaat raised his champions and the champions raised their armies. Myron of Yoram taught the trolls to fear, to fight, and, finally, to hate the very thought of humankind. Yet, it is also true that Deche and the trolls could have prospered together in the Kreegill, if Rajaat had not interfered. Men did not quarry, and trolls did not farm. By the time I was born, though, there was no mercy left in either race. It was too late for peace, too late for anything but annihilation. Rajaat and the Troll-Scorcher had seen to that.

  It was too late for Dorean. My beautiful bride remembered her life before Deche and could not bear the mention of trolls. To her, the gray-skinned trolls were evil incarnate. As the sun rose each day, she slipped outside the village and made a burnt-honey victory offering for the Troll-Scorcher. Her hatred was understandable: she'd seen trolls and their carnage. I'd seen only their ruins. My thoughts about trolls were whirling mysteries, even to me.

  In Deche, boys became men on their sixteenth birthday. I could have taken Dorean into my almost-finished house, but the elders asked us to wait until the next himali crop was in the ground. Dorean and I were already lovers; the delay was no hardship to us. We would be wedded before our child was born.

  The day of my birth looms bright in my memory, but the day that looms largest was the Height of Sun in my seventeenth year—the Year of Enemy's Vengeance, the day Dorean and I were to be wed. I remember the bloody sun as it rose over the Kreegill ridge, the spicy aromas of the food the women began to serve, the sounds o
f laughter, congratulations, and my cousin's pipes as I began the dance I had practiced for years. With music and motion, I told the world that I would cherish Dorean, protect her, and keep her safe from all harm.

  I was still dancing when drumbeats began to echo off the mountains above us. For a handful of heartbeats, the throbbing was part of my dance. Then my crippled uncle screamed, "Wardrums!" and another veteran shouted, "Trolls!" as he bolted from the feast.

  We had no time to flee or hide, scarcely enough time for panic. Trolls surged into Deche from every quarter, their battle-axes swinging freely. As I remember now, with greater knowledge and the hindsight of thirteen ages, I know there could not have been more than twenty trolls, not counting the drummers hiding outside the village. But that morning, my eyes beheld hundreds of gray-skinned beasts wearing polished armor and bearing bloody weapons.

  Fear made me bold, reckless. I had no weapons and wouldn't have known what to do with a sword, axe, or spear, if one had suddenly blossomed in my hands. In the midst of screaming confusion, I charged the nearest troll with my naked fists and never saw the blow that laid me flat.

  I've been spared the true history of that day, with all its horror and agony: not even Rajaat's champions can hope— or dread—the memory of what happened while they lay unconscious. I choose to believe that the village was dead before the butchery began, that all my kith and kin died swiftly, and that Dorean died first of all. My mind knows that I deceive my heart, because my mind learned what the trolls did when they defeated humanity: Their women drew our men's guts through slits in their bellies or broke apart their ribs and seized their still-beating hearts. What their men did to our women, no matter their age or beauty, would be best forgotten—

  If I could forget.

  Vengeance was mine, in the fullness of time; my conscience does not trouble me, but I am grateful that I cannot remember Deche's desecration. Destiny had dealt me a glancing blow to the side of my head, then destiny covered me in the refuse of what would have been my wedding feast and my home. The trolls didn't spare me, they simply didn't find me.

  The sun had set when I next opened my eyes. My head was on fire, but that wasn't what made me blink. A half-congealed drop of blood struck my cheek as I lay there wondering how I'd survived, wishing I hadn't. The eviscerated corpse of someone I had known, but no longer recognized, hung directly above me. I was showered with gore and offal.

  Trolls, I thought. They'd massacred Deche and stayed to celebrate their deeds in its ruins. I had no notion how many trolls remained, nor any hope that my second attack against them would be more successful than my first. I didn't much care either way. My fingers explored the ground beside me and clutched a rock somewhat larger than my fist. Armed with it and numb courage, I gained my feet and lunged for the nearest head.

  She seemed twice my size in the firelight. Drunk or not, she heard me coming and swatted me down. I was laid out on the damp ground, staring at the sky with a sore head, a busted lip, and tears leaking out my eyes. A score of strangers laughed. When I tried to stand, someone planted a foot on my chest.

  He'd've been wiser to kick me senseless: I still had my rock and put it to good use.

  The man went down, and I got up, trying to connect what I saw with what I remembered. I remembered trolls, but the drunken sods were human. They'd been guzzling Deche wine, keeping warm around a fire built from chairs, tables, and doors. Carnage was everywhere: hacked apart bodies, bodies with their faces torn off. Bugs were already crawling, and the stench—

  The sods didn't notice, or didn't care, but I'd never smelt violent death before. I gaped like an erdlu hatchling and coughed up acid from my gut.

  "You from around here, boy?"

  I turned toward the voice—

  And saw what the trolls had done to her, to my Dorean. Dead or alive, they'd torn away her wedding gown and bound her to the post beside the village well. Her face was gone, her breasts, too; she was clothed in blood and viscera. I recognized her by her long, black hair, the yellow flowers in it, and the unborn child whose cord they'd tied around her neck.

  A scream was born in my heart and died there. I couldn't move, not even to turn away or fall.

  "What's your name, boy?" another sod demanded.

  My mind was empty; I didn't know.

  "Can't talk. Doesn't know his name. Must be the village loon."

  "Hungry, loon?"

  Another voice, maybe a new one, maybe not. I heard the words as if they came from a great distance. A warm, moist clod struck my arm and landed in the dirt at my feet. My mind said stew-pot meat, but my heart said something else. More clods came my way, more laughter, too. I began to shiver uncontrollably.

  "Clamp your maws!" a woman interrupted sharply.

  Hard hands grasped my shoulders and spun me around. I lost my balance and leaned against the woman—the best of a sorry lot of humanity—I'd attacked with the rock. She was shorter than I, but numb and hopeless, I needed her strength.

  "Dolts! Can't you guess? This was his village, his folk—"

  "Why ain't he strung-out dead, like the rest of them?"

  "He's the loon—"

  "He ran off. Turned his yellow tail and ran."

  I stiffened with rage, but the woman held me tight. Her eyes told me to be quiet.

  "He got conked, that's what," she said, defending me.

  Her hand brushed my hair. It was a gentle touch, but it awakened the pain both in my skull and in my heart. I flinched away with a gasp.

  "Clipped him hard. He's lucky he's not dead or blind."

  Lucky—the very last word I would have chosen, but it broke the spell that had bound my voice.

  "My name is Manu," I told them. "This place was called Deche. It was my home until the trolls came this morning. Who are you? Why are you here? Why do you eat with the dead?"

  I knew who they were by then. There was, truly, only one possibility: These were the soldiers of the Troll-Scorcher's army. They'd pursued their enemy—my enemy—back to the Kreegills.

  "Where are the trolls? Have you avenged our deaths?"

  There were more hoots and wails of laughter until an otherwise silent yellow-haired man got to his feet. The mockery died, but looking into this veteran's cold, hard eyes, I was not reassured.

  "You ain't dead yet, farm boy, 'less you're tryin' to get yourself killed w' fancy words."

  He had the air of leadership about him, just as my grandfather had had. The woman beside me had gone soft with fear. His stare lashed me like a whip. I was expected to fear him, too. And I did. I'd measured myself against the Troll-Scorcher's soldiers and knew myself to be less than the least of them in every way save one: I was cleverer. I could see them for what they were. They scorned me, so I stood tall. They mocked my speech, so I chose my words with extra care.

  "I'll speak plainly: We farmers are told the-Troll-Scorcher's army swears an oath to uphold our race and pursue each and every troll to an unhallowed grave. I see how you uphold the folk of Deche; now show me the trolls in their unhallowed graves."

  The yellow-haired man cocked his fist, but my clothes were stained with the blood of my kith and kin. While I met his stare with one of my own, he didn't dare strike me.

  "Where are the trolls?" I demanded. "Have they returned to the plains? Have they ravished Corlane as they ravished Deche?" Corlane was another Kreegill village, somewhat higher in the valley. "Have they vanished into the mountains above us? I know their old places. I can take you to them."

  Behind my eyes I saw the folk of Corlane not as I had known them, but as my own people were: mutilated, faceless, and bleeding. I felt nothing for them; I felt nothing at all, except the need for vengeance.

  "You can slaughter them as they slaughtered Deche."

  "Slaughter!" the yellow-haired man snorted. "Us? Us slaughtering trolls? Risking our lives for the likes of them... or you?"

  There was a secret in his eyes. I saw that, and a challenge. He'd answer my questions if I had the guts, the gall
, to ask them, but he didn't think I'd survive the knowing. Perhaps, I wouldn't have if he hadn't tempered me, then and there, in his contempt.

  "Why are you here?" I demanded, returning to my earlier questions. "Why do you feast with the dead as witnesses?

  Why don't you hunt and slaughter the trolls who hunted and slaughtered us?"

  The yellow-haired man smiled. His teeth were stained, and one was sharpened to a fang point. "That's for the Troll-Scorcher, boy. He's the one, the only one, who slays trolls. We hunt 'em, boy, an' hunt 'em an' hunt 'em, but that's all we do. He comes an' scorches 'em. We touch one gray wart an' we'd be the ones getting cindered-up from the inside out. I seen it happen, boy. This"—he cocked his callused thumb at poor Dorean—"this ain't nothing, boy, compared to scorching. Trolls could take you an' yours a thousand times, an' it don't matter to me, so long as there's trolls for scorchin' when he comes."

  I stood mute, strung between disgust and rage. The woman beside me squeezed my arm.

  "It's the truth, boy," she said.

  Swallowing my disgust, I let my rage speak, soft, slow, and cold. "Where is Myron of Yoram?" I asked. "When does the Troll-Scorcher come?" I thought I knew the answer, but I needed to hear it.

  Another smile from the yellow-haired man. "Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day. We been following these trolls since the start of High Sun." The grin soured. "He knows where we are, boy. He'll come when it suits him, not before. Till then, we follow the trolls an' we follow 'em close, so no man knows we're here."

  "I'm a man," I said, "I know."

  He drew a bone knife from his belt. "Trolls leave meat behind, not men."

  I should have died. Everything I loved and cherished had already died. Their shades called me through the darkness. I belonged with Deche, with my family, with my beloved. But my rage was stronger and my thirst for vengeance against trolls, men, and Myron of Yoram couldn't be slaked by death. A voice I scarcely recognized as my own stirred in my throat.