Hidden scars, p.19
The Ogre Apprentice (The Bowl of Souls Book 8), page 19
Now! Tarah commanded and Esmine gave the signal.
To Tarah and her friends nothing changed, but everyone assembled in the square flinched. Villagers and orcs alike shaded their eyes and cried out as Esmine sent out the illusion of a blinding flash, followed by a deep echoing boom. The wizardess screeched and turned around in shock. To her eyes, the sky had become filled with dark clouds and a brilliant pillar of light had descended from the heavens.
Now it was time for Tarah’s new revisions to the plan. Tarah stepped out of the ruined building and the crowd of villagers and their captors gasped as they saw an enormous figure appear as if falling from the sky above. It struck the ground in front of the remains of the ruined church and towered over the square like a looming giant.
The figure looked very much like Tarah herself, but with a glowing visage and a staff of pure light in one hand. The god-like being opened its mouth and bellowed with a voice like thunder, “I HAVE COME TO DELIVER JUDGEMENT!”
The giant raised its foot and Tarah darted forward. The orc in front of her crumpled to the ground, its skull caved in by her staff, but to the assembled it looked like it fell beneath the giant’s foot. All around the square, more terrified orcs fell bleeding as Tarah’s friends, invisible to the eyes of the crowd, rushed out of nearby buildings and attacked. What the crowd saw was bolts of light firing from the giant’s eyes, slaying the orcs.
The dark wizardess overcame her shock quickly and hurled a ball of fire up at the giant, but the spell passed harmlessly through the illusion, exploding into the air far above Tarah’s head. Several orc arrows joined the wizardess’ spell in its futility.
The wizardess roared in defiance, giving Swen the target he wanted. A long arrow darted in, filling the evil woman’s open mouth. The white-haired woman stumbled backward and fell, gurgling as she clutched at the fletchings that jutted from between her teeth.
Tarah finished off another orc with two quick strikes from her staff, then made her way towards the gnome bound on the altar. It took her longer than expected to get there as she had to bob and weave around cowering and praying villagers. Finally, she arrived at the altar and pulled the gag from the gnome’s mouth.
Before Tarah could say anything to him, he spoke with a voice that was calm and precise. “Excuse me, miss, but you and your friends seem to have forgotten about the imp.”
Tarah’s eyes widened and she turned, looking around for the dark wizardess’ assistant. Suddenly, she felt something tight clamp around her wrist and the imp appeared from thin air. His clawed hand was gripping Tarah’s arm right behind where she held her staff.
“I’m not so easily fooled, human. I see through your illusion!” sneered the imp. The clever demon had acted as soon as the flash of light had appeared. He had pressed himself against the wall of the building behind him and wrapped himself in air magic, disguising his presence.
Tarah wasn’t intimidated. She was a full foot taller than the imp and much stronger. She tried to pull free from its grasp so that she could bring her weapon to bear, but she found herself unable to move, bound by flows of air.
“Release your weapon!” the imp snarled, his red eyes flaring at her.
The imp’s claws dug painfully into her wrist, but Tarah refused to let go of the staff. Calling upon Esmine’s magic, she snarled back and flooded the foul creature’s senses with a torrent of horrible images and sounds. It grimaced in discomfort.
Esmine amplified her voice to sound like that of an enraged beast and Tarah’s eyes blazed with fire as she commanded, “Let go of me or face an eternity of torment!”
“More illusion!” the imp snapped. “And powerful too. But nothing compared to what I can do to you. Give me the staff!”
Flames erupted from his hand, burning Tarah’s wrist and she cried out in pain. Esmine cried out along with her and the illusions faded, the image of the towering giant evaporating into thin air.
The imp sneered in triumph, “Perhaps I’ll simply take the staff once I’m done burning the flesh from your bones. I’ll-!”
The imp’s eyes caught movement coming towards him and turned his head just in time to meet Willum’s axe. The heavy blade struck the creature right between the eyes. The runes in the side of the axe flared on contact and an invisible blade of air cleaved the imp in two, tearing through his armor as if it were paper.
Willum sunk his axe into the imp’s remains so that Theodore could drink his fill and turned to Tarah. “You alright?”
“Yeah,” she said. Now that she was released from the bands of air, she switched her staff to her other hand and raised her arm to inspect the damage. The wrist was a bright red and her skin was white where the imp’s fingers hand been clamped onto her. It felt as if it were still on fire. “It gave me a nasty burn, but that’s about it. Thanks for coming in when you did.”
“Theodore warned me that you were in trouble.” Willum scratched his head. “He was surprisingly excited at the thought of striking down one of his own kind.”
“Oh gosh!” said Cletus’ voice from across the square.
Tarah glanced over at him. The gnome warrior’s eyes were focused on the altar and he didn’t see the angry orc that was running towards him. She shouted a warning, but it ended up not mattering. The gnome warrior didn’t bother turning around as he slung his chain weapon in an arc behind him, slicing through the doomed orc’s throat.
As the orc fell gurgling, Cletus flung the blood off the end of his chain weapon and darted towards them, dancing around the startled villagers. To Tarah’s surprise, he pushed his way between her and Willum. Standing in front of the altar, he took his shirt off in one smooth motion and placed it over the bound gnome’s lower body.
“Oh! Hello there, Cletus!” the gnome scholar exclaimed in surprise. “How nice. I didn’t expect that I would ever see you again.”
“Hello, Scholar Tobias,” Cletus said, grinning back at him. “I covered up your wee-wee.”
“And I am most grateful,” the scholar replied, struggling to sit up with the way he was bound. “Would you, er, mind helping me up?” Cletus helped him rise into a sitting position and began untying his bonds. The gnome scholar looked at Tarah and Willum appraisingly. “Very interesting weapons the two of you have. What sort of creatures are bound to them I wonder? They must be quite powerful for them to do what I just saw.”
They blinked at him. This gnome scholar seemed strangely observant.
“Tarah!” Djeri ran up to them, weaving around a cluster of men wearing brown robes, who were kneeling in praise to the god that they assumed had just saved them.
“Stupid turd eaters took longer to take down than I expected,” Djeri said as he arrived. The dwarf slid the long blade of the Ramsetter back into the sheath on his back. “It seems that the illusions only last so long. Once we took a few of those orcs down, they started seeing through it. We need to take that in mind for future raids. I-.” He winced, sucking in air as he looked at Tarah’s wrist. “Are you alright? That burn looks horrible.”
“It hurts pretty good,” she admitted, wincing back at him as he lifted her hand to look at it closer. Long blisters were rising up in the shape of the imp’s fingers.
“Some tomparro root would be good for a burn like that,” the gnome scholar commented. “Or xander melon sap. Unfortunately neither of those grow in these parts so that information isn’t very helpful. At any rate, you should tend to it quickly. A burn like that could leave scars.”
“I’ve got some healing salve in my pack. I picked it up from the wizards before we left,” Willum said. “I’ll be right back.” He retrieved his axe and rushed back towards the building where he had been waiting before the battle started.
“If only the wizards would have sent a mage along with us,” Djeri griped.
The Alberri Mage School had not been as helpful as they had wished. The wizards had healed Helmet Jan and replenished their supplies, but they had refused to get involved in their cause against Scholar Aloysius. Evidently they were too preoccupied with the current war to worry about the oncoming threat of a rogue gnome scholar and a relatively small army that, as far as they were concerned, hadn’t yet become involved in the conflict.
“Then you have been to our mage school,” said Scholar Tobias excitedly. “Have you met any other members of the resistance?”
Tarah and Djeri glanced at each other. The ‘resistance’ against Aloysius seemed to be a fairly flimsy one. The handful that they had met seemed quite scatterbrained and afraid. They only thing they had agreed upon was that Aloysius was dangerous. Hopefully they didn’t represent the limits of Tobias’ forces.
“We met a few scholars that were taking shelter at the school,” Djeri replied diplomatically. “They were the ones who told us to come to this village to find you.”
“How clever of them!” Tobias said proudly. “I am so pleased that they sent you in time to rescue me.”
“They didn’t know that you had been captured,” Tarah said. “They just said you were hiding here.”
The gnomes face fell slightly. “Ah well. It was a fortunate coincidence nonetheless.” A sudden gust of wind whipped through the area and he shivered. “A bit chilly today, isn’t it?”
“Do you know what they did with your clothes?” Tarah asked.
“Burned them, I’m afraid,” he said, his cheeks turning red. “It was quite humiliating. The village maidens got quite an eyeful.”
“I doubt they were looking too hard,” said Grampa Rolf. The specter of the old man was leaning up against the side of the building. He was still whittling the same piece of wood he had been when Tarah had last seen him.
Really? Is that comment coming from you, Esmine? Tarah thought. Her grampa shrugged.
“What about this robe?” Cletus said pointing to the figure of the dead wizardess on the ground nearby. Her red robe was thick and voluminous, fluttering in the stiff breeze. “It’s nice. It looks warm and there’s hardly any blood on it.”
Tobias wrinkled his nose. “I can’t say that I like wearing red but it’s better than the nothing that I’m wearing now.”
Cletus pried the robe off of the woman. She was wearing a simple set of under garments beneath it. Tarah noted with distaste that the wizardess’ skin was covered in obscene tattoos.
As the gnome warrior carried the robe to the scholar, Tarah’s eyes caught the flash of something golden gleaming on the ground. She stepped closer, her curiosity momentarily distracting her from the pain of her burned wrist. It was the wizardess’ dagger.
It was long and wicked looking, made of black iron. The gleam she had seen came from the amber stones embedded in the hilt and base of the blade. The blade of the dagger was a strange thing. It turned in a corkscrew fashion almost as if someone with extremely strong hands had gripped it while it was red hot and twisted it a few times.
Tarah picked it up with her unburned hand and felt an immediate wave of revulsion. This thing seemed angry somehow. She almost dropped it right away, but felt compelled to look closer. The twisted blade was engraved with fine silver runes and the edges were covered with a rusty red powder that looked like dried blood.
“I don’t like the look of that thing,” Djeri said.
“Me neither,” said Grampa Rolf, pointing at it with his carving knife. “Dagger like that’s got no edge. It’s got no good purpose but murder.”
“Yeah, I don’t like it either,” Tarah agreed. Part of her was screaming that she should throw it away, but at the same time she really didn’t want to. “But I can’t just leave the thing laying here in the village, can I?” She didn’t know where to put it, so she tried to place it into the quiver that was slung over her shoulder. Tarah had to wiggle it back and forth to get it to fall in between her arrows. She felt relieved when she let go of it and shuddered as she wiped her hand on her pants. “I’ll take it out and bury it deep in the ground next chance I get.”
“Yeah, you do that,” Djeri agreed, eyeing her quiver with unease.
Willum ran back up to them, a small clay jar in one hand. He pried open the lid and held it out to her. “Here, try this on that burn. Theodore says it has some elf magic in it.”
“Thank you,” Tarah said and dipped two fingers inside. The salve that filled the jar was light blue in coloration, though to Tarah’s eyes it had sort of a blurry dark blur about it. It smelled strongly of mint, but of a variety she had never smelled before.
“Ah! Tomparro root just like I said,” exclaimed Scholar Tobias proudly. He had put the red robe on and belted it around his narrow waist. It was obvious that the garment wasn’t designed for a seven-foot gnome. The sleeves came several inches short and the length of it barely reached his knees. “Of course those wizards should know this sort of thing.”
Tarah pulled out a large glob of the salve and applied it gently to her red and swollen wrist. She felt a momentary flash of pain, followed by a cool tingly sensation spread across her skin. “Ooh. That is much better.”
“Well!” said Scholar Tobias. “I take it from your earlier remarks that the wizards at our local mage school haven’t yet seen fit to act against Scholar Aloysius?”
“They said that they don’t wish to be involved in ‘gnomish politics’,” Djeri replied.
“And you told them of his army of demons?” Tobias asked, his eyebrows raised.
“You knew about that?” Djeri said in surprise.
Tobias snorted. “But of course.”
“How could you?” Djeri asked. “It only happened a week ago.”
The gnome gave him a self important smile. “My good young dwarf, if I did not make it my business to know these sort of things, what kind of resistance leader would I be?”
“I don’t know. The kind that gets tied naked to an altar?” said Grampa Rolf sardonically.
“Alright, fine,” Djeri said, narrowing his eyes at the gnome. “Yes, we told the wizards about the army and no, they didn’t seem too worried.”
“We’ll see if they keep that attitude when Aloysius takes his little army and assaults the capital,” Willum said, shaking his head as he resealed the bottle of salve.
“In actuality, they’re right not to worry about the capital at this point,” Tobias replied. “Scholar Aloysius isn’t taking his army there. They were marching in that direction earlier, but two days ago they changed course. Now they are headed east. I found out about their course correction just before that wizardess attacked the village.”
“East?” Djeri said in surprise. “That makes no sense. There are no targets of note in that direction.”
“Not in Alberri there isn’t,” corrected the gnome. “But Aloysius is taking his little army to Malaroo.”
“Malaroo?” Tarah said in disbelief. “There’s nothing there but a bunch of swamps. What could he possibly have to gain by taking an army down there?”
The gnome’s smile faded. “Oh, only the power to conquer the known lands.”
Chapter Eleven
The arrow shot forty feet upward at a slight angle, arced softly, then, weighted by the steel arrowhead, fell back towards the earth. The plummeting arrow passed through a small brass ring affixed to a tree limb and struck the target that lie flat on the ground, sticking just outside the center circle.
“Yes!” Justan exulted. “Deathclaw, did you see that shot?”
Justan examined his bow again and noticed with excitement that another rune had faded away completely. That made three designs gone since Beltry had started him on this odd type of training over a week ago. He could feel the results. His bond with Ma’am felt stronger than before and she was more responsive to his wishes.
“You hit the target,” Deathclaw replied from his position a few yards behind Justan. He was sitting atop the tall white brick wall that surrounded this section of the archery range. He was facing Justan, his taloned feet dangling over the edge while he balanced a throwing knife on one claw-tipped finger. “It was ten feet away.”
“That’s not the point,” Justan said. “It was a soft shot. I couldn’t have done that before.”
“Yes you could,” Deathclaw said, he flipped the blade into the air, then caught it and threw it in one quick movement. The blade flew in a straight line, striking the target right next to Justan’s arrow, a fraction closer to the target’s center. “A simple shot at short range. Why worry about firing soft and fancy when a direct shot is just as effective? Perhaps you should train a useful skill.”
“You don’t get it,” Justan said exasperatedly. “It’s more of a subtle thing. I can now control how taut the bow is and that lets me fire at varying distances with greater precision.”
