Cullen sat at the table in the Rook’s Roost, his untouched breakfast cold on the plate. A large mug of strong tea sat at his hand, but it had grown cold as well.
Koraya sat opposite him, finishing a large plate of sausages. Aydin was already gone, recalled by Gheen to the temple in Druzh. The young troll put her hand over her mouth and gave a rumbling, appreciative belch. She mopped the grease from the platter with thick, brown bread, dipped it in her wine, then popped it in her mouth. With a glance at Cullen’s plate, she said, “You aren’t hungry, Gabriel Cullen? We must hike a long way today if we are to catch up to your daughter’s army.”
“Hmm?” Looking up, he gave a half smile, then pushed the plate toward her. “I suppose not.” Pausing, he grabbed the bread before she could take it. He took a bite, chewed thoughtfully, then put down the small loaf.
“I’m not sure what hope we have,” he said at last. “I’m forced to confront my daughter and a troll clan I know nothing about, and somehow convince them to lay down their arms. I wanted to discuss it further with your uncle, but Longtooth practically pushed us out the door last night. I hardly had a dozen words with Gheen after our meeting.”
She nodded and slid his eggs and sausage onto her plate. “When he became Holy One, it brought status to our family. We are grateful to you for the part you played in that. We are Low Trolls, unlike Grimmun-Kan and most of our clan.”
He began crumbling bits from the loaf and idly rolling them between his fingers. “You’ll have to explain that to me one day.”
She swallowed a mouthful and stared at him. “The Holy One trusts in you. You have done a great thing.”
Cullen shook his head. “Being troll zu anush doesn’t give me any wisdom about how to stop a war.”
“Troll-hu zur anush,” she corrected. “No pakh-hu, er, human, has ever been given the title.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Never?”
She shook her head.
“Is he different–than when you knew him before?”
She smiled broadly and nodded. “He speaks differently.”
Cullen nodded and nibbled a bit of bread. “I guess that could happen if there were a half dozen dead shamans living in you.”
“Is not like that,” she said with troubled look.
He chuckled and patted her arm. “I know. We pakh-hu make jokes about things we don’t understand. But tell me something, Koraya. Your uncle sent you here as hostage. What does that mean in troll culture?”
The question caught her with a forkful of sausage and fried egg. She lowered the fork, placing it on the plate, and clasped her hands before her on the table as if in prayer. “I am bound to you. If Three Valleys or Gray Face clans violate the–”
“I know all that,” Cullen said. “Your life is forfeit if they violate the treaty. But what does that mean for you–or for me, for that matter?”
Koraya raised her hand. Only a thin, dark line showed where she had cut her own hand in the blood oath on the bridge. “My blood is no longer mine. By right, it belongs to the clans and the pakh-hu who signed the River Crossing Accord. I am your servant. You hold that blood in trust.”
Cullen swallowed uneasily. “That’s a lot of responsibility, for you and for me. Let’s not not mess it up.”
“Koraya doesn’t know ‘mess it up.’”
“We better not burn the gornok.”
Her eyes brightened and she nodded.
The innkeeper Pratt interrupted. “Will there be anything else for you and your…guest, Master Cullen?”
Koraya smiled at the man and bobbed her head. “More sausages. They are most excellent.”
Pratt broke into a broad grin. “Right away, Miss. I’m glad you like them. They’re fresh.”
She cocked her head and frowned. “Did the sausages come from Butcher Figg?”
The innkeeper shook his head vigorously and gave a pleased smile. “No, Miss. They’re made right here in the kitchen by my wife, from our own hogs.”
He glanced over his shoulder at a tall figure near the door, then back at Cullen. “I beg your pardon, Master, but there’s Brother Dunken here to see you.”
Cullen looked up. “The monk? What’s he want?”
“I couldn’t say. Shall I invite him over?”
“Yes,” Cullen said to Pratt. “Send him over.”
“Is he a Holy One?” Koraya asked with a whisper. She straightened and brushed the crumbs from her mouth.
As Pratt neared the door, Cullen replied, “Yes, but not quite. They are holy men–and women–I suppose, but they don’t do magic.”
“Should I leave so that you may speak to him? Holy Ones are bearers of much wisdom.”
“No, stay.” He looked at the empty plates and smiled. “Mister Pratt is bringing more food.”
The troll reached into a pocket and withdrew a small, hooked blade. She pushed it across the table to him.
He recognized it immediately. “That’s an ukar knife.” It was the blade she’d used on the bridge. When Grimmun had first taken him to see Gheen’s predecessor at the troll temple, the troll had nicked his own palm to draw blood and demanded that Cullen do the same. “It’s for a blood offering to the Holy One.”
He glanced at the approaching monk and pushed it back to her. “No, no. We don’t do that.”
Brother Dunken was one of a pair of wandering monks of Ounwe. For some inexplicable reason, the two had accompanied Isabo’s fighters to the battle in the mountains. It was odd because neither he nor Isabo had ever dealt with the clerics back in Haywold. They were inoffensive, for the most part. They wandered from town to town, preaching from the Nine Laws or the Scrolls of the Peace of Ounwe. They also taught the youngsters their letters, or worked in the trades, lending a hand to the blacksmith or baker, according to whatever skills they possessed. There was a story that this fellow Dunken had knocked his companion on the head before the action started. No one much spoke about it, but then he hadn’t exactly sought them out.
“Sir, you are Gabriel Cullen. I’ve seen you many times.”
The man could easily have been a fighter, even a bare-knuckle brawler. His gray, travel-worn robes couldn’t hide the broad chest or huge fists. Yet his soft tone and gentle demeanor spoke of a life of contemplation and service, not of war. He also looked as if he’d lost his last friend.
“Then I guess I can’t deny it,” he said, rising from his chair. “Can I help you with something, Brother?” Koraya stood also, but bowed low.
The monk gave a thin smile and returned her bow.
“Brother, this is Koraya, daughter of Khun and niece to Gheen, Holy One of the Three Valleys clan. She is under my protection.”
Dunken clasped his hands over his chest. “May Ounwe’s mercy and grace be upon you and your family, Koraya. I have met your uncle. He is honorable.”
The troll returned a gracious blessing, and Cullen motioned them to take seats.
The monk hesitated. “I beg pardon, sir, but may I talk to you privately? I mean no disrespect.”
Cullen glanced up to see Pratt returning with a platter laden with fat sausages and fried eggs. “Koraya, help yourself to whatever you can eat. When you’re done, we need to see if the mayor has our gear yet. Then we can set out. I’m going to step outside to speak to Brother Dunken.”
She bowed to the cleric again, then sat as Cullen and Dunken made their way to the door.
***
Outside the inn, Cullen glanced at the sky. Dense gray clouds were building from the west, and he caught the deep rumble of thunder. Trees whipped in the wind over the walls of the village. He hoped the weather wasn’t an omen for their journey.
“So, what can I do for you, Brother?” he asked.
Dunken wrung his hands and shifted nervously. “Would it trouble you to walk to the hermitage? It’s a guesthouse of the Monastery of Ounwe in Harrun. It’s outside the walls of Pineholm, but we find it convenient. Brother Ignatus graciously offered cells for Brother Yoren and me when we…returned from the mountains last year. It’s a place of silence, but it’s still near the village. The road runs along the canyon there.”
The monk was talking randomly. When he mentioned Yoren, the other cleric that Cullen barely remembered, he paused, as if in pain.
Cullen glanced back at the inn. Koraya should be fine by herself. “I suppose we can walk there, but Koraya and I must be off today. We have business away northward.”
Dunken nodded, clenching and unclenching his fists. Given his size, it was unnerving.
“I’m grateful for your time. I know you have important things to do with the troll maiden. I approached your daughter, Isabo, but she refused to see me.”
That caught his attention. “You traveled with her, didn’t you? You and Yoren.”
The monk nodded. “That is what I must speak to you about.”
They passed through the village gates and turned onto the south road along the canyon.
Dunken looked around to see that there was no one nearby. He leaned close as they walked and spoke so quietly that Cullen had trouble following his words. “Brother Yoren was given an important task by the abbot of our order. I came with him. We was to meet up with you at Haywold, and we walked the twenty leagues from Harrun, only to miss you because you was away tracking the trolls who raided the Pinchbek’s farm. Isabo had returned and was gathering fighters to aid you when we arrived.”
The broad dirt-and-stone road curved east, following the rocky edge. Gusty winds whipped through the pines, combining with the roar of the river far below to make it difficult to hear. Cullen pointed to his ears and called, “Wait till we get to your hermitage.”
Dunken bowed his head and kept walking. At a sheltered spot near the edge, someone had placed a wooden chair to sit and enjoy the view. The monk glanced at it, wiped at his face, and moved on.
“It’s a beautiful place,” Cullen called, but Dunken didn’t reply.
When they arrived at the monastery outpost a few minutes later, Cullen smiled. The dense trees of the Dimwood had been cleared, exposing a homey, two-level, log-and-stone structure built against the hillside facing the canyon. It offered a majestic view of the broad chasm and the woody forest on the other side.
“How many live here?” Cullen asked against the wind.
“Only Brother Ignatus and his wife. They keep rooms for travelers from the order. I’m the only one staying here now.”
“What about–?”
Dunken shook his head. “Wait till we get inside. We won’t see Brother Ignatus or Sister Camilla. They’re at the market.”
He led Cullen to the house, but paused at a small shrine beside the door. It was inscribed with what looked to be the Nine Laws. Beside it was a bowl of water. Dunken dipped his fingers into it, then shook the water from his hands onto the ground. Cullen repeated the action.
“That’s not too different from what the trolls do,” he said, “except they use blood.”
Dunken didn’t speak, but opened the door.
Cullen walked into a small parlor. A wooden screen hid the interior, and he stepped around it to see a neat but comfortable room. He took in the common area with its dining table in the center and comfortable chairs along the walls. The walls themselves were adorned with more icons, some carved or painted with images and some with prayers. Hallways opened to the left and right.
“It’s just through here,” Dunken said, leading him to the left corridor. “Ignatus and Camilla live in the other hall.”
“Is this about the Pinchbeks?” Cullen asked. “I couldn’t follow everything you were saying earlier.”
Dunken shook his head and opened a door. “This was Brother Yoren’s cell.”
Was?
Cullen entered. Immediately, he felt a low thrum in his chest that he couldn’t place. There was no sound, other than the wind outside. The room was simple, with nothing on the walls. A tiny table with a single chair stood on one wall, and a precisely made bed along the other. Dunken opened the shutter on a small window to let in some light, and Cullen saw a leather sack on the bed. Other than that, there were no personal belongings in the room or any other signs that anyone had been staying here.
“Please be welcome,” Dunken said, motioning to the chair at the table. He sat on the bed.
“What’s this about?” Cullen said, taking a seat. He rubbed at his chest, as if to dispel the odd sensation.
The monk clasped his hands on his knees and heaved a weary sigh. “Brother Yoren is dead.”
Cullen blinked. “I’m sorry to hear that. Could we back up a bit? I think you said you two came to Haywold to find me. And where’s that odd sound coming from?” It wasn’t quite a sound, but he was at a loss to describe it otherwise.
The monk raised an eyebrow. “I apologize, but there is no sound, other than the wind. Is it a feeling in your chest?”
Cullen nodded.
“I don’t feel it, but Brother Yoren described it.” He gave Cullen an odd look. “That confirms something I thought. I’m not a smart man, but I can figure things out.”
“I don’t doubt it, but you’d better start at the beginning. You said somebody was given a mission.”
“Yes,” Dunken said. “Brother Merren, the abbot of our order, gave Brother Yoren a task. He was to find you and give you something.”
“Merren? I don’t know that name. Is he in Harrun, at your monastery?”
Dunken nodded, wringing his hands again. “Yes, he is the chief of our order.”
“So what was Yoren supposed to give me?”
The monk shrugged and nodded at the bundle on the bed. “It’s here.”
Cullen reached out to grasp the sack. The feeling in his chest intensified, like a swarm of angry hornets in a stirred hive. He pulled his hand back. “What happened to Yoren?”
“He’s dead,” Dunken repeated, rubbing at his eye as if hiding a tear. He didn’t speak for a few moments, and when he did, his voice broke. “His task from the abbot was to give you something to deliver to the shaman of the Three Valleys clan.”
“To Gheen?”
Dunken shook his head. “The other one, I think. The one before Gheen. But I guess it should go to him now. It was a gift, I think, a scroll, that would help bring peace somehow. Yoren wouldn’t tell me much about it, but he decided it was wrong–that it shouldn’t go to the trolls. Yoren hated them, I think, especially after he saw what they did to the man called Luck.”
“Arden Luck,” Cullen whispered. “He was my friend. They killed him and ate his flesh.”
“I am truly sorry. That was when Yoren decided he couldn’t do what the abbot asked, or at least, that’s when it started.” He stared at the bundle. “And after that, I think Brother Yoren grew to be sweet on your daughter, on Miss Isabo.”
“What? My Isabo and–?”
The monk bobbed his head again, but said, “I don’t think they did anything, you know, wrong, that they shouldn’t. He knew she hated the trolls, and he liked that. She thought they captured you and were going to do the same thing. I mean, that they would eat you.”
Cullen gave a weary sigh and nodded. “That was certainly Isabo…the foolish girl. What did he do with the scroll?”
“He hid it before we got to Druzh, in the mountains. That was before the battle. He wasn’t going to give it to them, and that was wrong. We had a mission, a holy order to do a thing, and he wouldn’t do it.”
“Did you hit him? Before the battle?”
Tears flowed down the monk’s cheeks as he nodded. “I’m ashamed of what I done, but I had to. He promised the abbot he’d bring the cursed thing to you to give to the shaman. You wasn’t there. In the end, I think he wanted to use it against the trolls.”
Cullen leaned forward in the chair. “This thing was cursed?”
He shook his head quickly. “Oh, no. That’s just my stupid way of talking. Why would the blessed abbot even have a thing like that? And why would he want to give it to those creatures? Brother Merren–that’s his name–is a good man.”
Dunken stood and walked to the window. He was silent for a few long moments. “I might be wrong about it not being cursed. It’s what killed Yoren.”
Cullen stood and walked to the monk’s side. “Tell me what happened.”
The monk stared at the tops of the pines near the canyon swaying in the wind. “He told me that when Brother Merren gave him the scroll at the monastery, he touched it and had a vision. It was a group of troll shamans–Holy Ones, they’re called. Each one had a sniffer. Together they created powerful magic.”
“A conclave,” Cullen muttered, suddenly remembering Longtooth’s threat.
Dunken cocked his head, then shook it. “He said the visions stopped when he took his hand away. The abbot wrapped it up safe in a leather covering and said to bring it to you. But as long as Yoren had it, he had dark, terrible dreams. He heard voices in his head.” Tapping his chest, he said, “He felt it here, like you did. Isabo did, too. I heard her talking about the evil dreams she had once we joined up with her. You wasn’t there, at Haywold, so Yoren had to carry the thing all this way. It ate away at him, like a rot.”
“Isabo felt it, too?”
He nodded. “Like I said, Master Cullen, I’m not a smart man, but I think it’s because you all have the scent-gift. You’re sniffers. Somehow, you feel whatever magic is in the scroll. I can’t do that. It’s just parchment to me–a cursed parchment, maybe.”
Cullen reeled at that. It actually made sense. He felt it whenever Gheen or ur-Shegg, his predecessor, used magic. But Yoren had it, too? The scent-gift was a rare thing. He’d known few who had it: only Tilda Dannick, the other scout who had helped the trolls and left him clues to defeat Azuk, and a few scattered cousins here and there.
“Why did your abbot give it to Yoren and not you, if it was so dangerous? Did he know Yoren had the gift?”
Dunken shrugged.
“So what happened to your friend?”
The monk’s meek face hardened, and tears coursed down his face. “He kept it, rather than turning it over to the trolls. All this time, the thing has been working on his mind. Three days ago, I came back here. I stopped along the canyon at the place he used to sit. That’s where I found his shoes and his things. It’s near a hundred feet down to the river. I looked, and his body was there below, broken on the rocks. It’s still there. He’s still there. The scroll drove him mad. I tried to say the Prayers for the Dead for him, but I couldn’t.” He stared at the bundle on the bed. “You should take it. Take it away.”
Cullen turned and opened the bundle on the bed, careful not to touch anything within. On top lay the scroll in a thick, leather-covered cylinder. The odd sensation in his chest intensified, and a flurry of vague images flitted through his brain. He upended the bag. Besides the scroll, it contained a few hygiene and personal items, as well as a blue-gray stone on a leather thong. The stone was carved with a rune, but it wasn’t vurad, the powerful symbol Gheen had used in fighting the demon Azuk. Cullen recognized it, barely. He closed his eyes, trying to remember where he had seen it.
Romeg, that was it.
“Yoren was wearing this,” Cullen said, recalling the aftermath of the battle between Isabo’s forces and the trolls. “After the fighting in Druzh, Gheen and I saw this around his neck.”
He closed his fist around it, and a wave of peace and calm washed over him. The thrumming in his chest disappeared. Gheen had said that the stone was a protection for sniffers. Cullen had no idea from what, until now.
“I don’t understand, Dunken. If Yoren was a sniffer, this should have protected him from the effects of the scroll.”
The monk shrugged, but raised an eyebrow. “Yoren told me that the abbot gave it to him, but he only wore it sometimes.”
Cullen glanced out the window. The wind had lessened slightly. Time was getting on. Koraya should have finished breakfast by now and gone to see the mayor about their gear.
“Dunken, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that Yoren suffered so, and that you have lost your friend. Speak to Brother Ignatus. I’m sure that he will help you with the Prayers for the Dead. I have to go north to stop Isabo.”
“But what about the scroll?”
What indeed?
He stared at the pile on the bed. He had no idea what the scroll was for, but the abbot must have. The abbot had trusted Yoren to get it to him and had assumed Cullen would be able to get it to the trolls.
He held the romeg stone out to Dunken. “Take this.”
The monk stared at the offered object. “Why?”
“It was given to your friend to protect him from the scroll. You don’t need it, because the scroll has no effect on you, but keep it as a reminder of him. This morning, you told Koraya that Gheen was an honorable troll. Do you believe that?”
Dunken nodded. “He wants peace. And I know that you trust him.”
Cullen smiled. “I do. Gheen has gone back to Druzh. Brother Dunken, I want you to finish the task your abbot gave to Brother Yoren, because I can’t. Will you take the scroll to Druzh?”
Dunken stared, wide-eyed. “To the trolls?”
“Yes. Koraya and I have to leave today. We have to stop a war before it starts. But we will introduce you to Durukh. He’s the trollish trade envoy at Gammush, across the bridge. He will see to it that you get this to Gheen. The Holy One was here to discuss what’s happened in Bridge Town, but left this morning to return to Druzh. Will you go to him?”
A grim smile crossed the monk’s face. “For Abbot Merren and Brother Yoren, yes. I will do that.”
Cullen turned to leave, but staggered. He heard Gheen’s voice, as clearly as if the troll were standing beside him, speaking a single word: trap. He glanced around in surprise. There was no one in the room but Dunken. He went to the small window. There was no one outside, human or troll.
“Are you well, Master Cullen?” the monk asked with a look of concern.
The echo of Gheen’s voice faded, but the cold dread settled deep in Cullen’s gut. Trap. It wasn’t a hallucination; it was a warning sent across the miles, desperate and terrifyingly clear. He gripped the sill of the small window.
“I’m not well, Brother,” Cullen said, his hand dropping to the hilt of his sword. He turned from the window, his eyes suddenly hard. “Go to Gheen. Don’t stop for anything.”