Pillar

Chapter Two

Vivian waved goodbye to the Willow, using her staff to part the poisonous vines to grant her passage. She felt accomplished today; she’d gathered several herbs from the woods on the other side of the Prism Strand field, along with a sampling of some finer Ember Crab shells. They’d still been warm to the touch, beet red with spiny ridges running along the molted shell. She knew she could harvest some eggs if she were to search hard enough, though she wouldn’t want to raise the ire of one of the nesting mothers. The crabs could easily get up to a hundred pounds and possessed the ability to shoot scorching steam through vents in their pincers up to fifteen feet away. Judging by the shell pieces she’d gathered, there were some rather large specimens hiding in the silt along the Vreba River.

The river itself was a veritable treasure trove of resources, one that Vivian intended to tap into once she traded with some fisherman. The Sound of War served Dragon Fish stew almost nightly, the bony creatures hardly useful for a decent meal otherwise. She wanted a few fresher ones she could harvest from, knowing that their internal organs were useful to the discerning wizard in the Hills of Iron, where the breed of fish was far rarer. She’d gathered a few Vreba pearls from Snaggle Clams, the muscled foot embedded into the silt of the river banks where the river became choppier. She’d taken a smaller specimen from the water, having to use a thin dagger to pry the foot from a heavy rock deep in the riverbank's mud. It would serve as a good meal tonight, saving Vivian some money, and the minute pearls she’d gathered from the clam were worth a few silver coins from the old merchant that’d taken up residence in the bar in anticipation of the coming harvest of the brown barley.

Stretching her lean arms above her head, Vivian sighed as her back popped pleasantly. She rubbed at her lower back where a dull ache radiated from. Hours spent stooped over her journal, having left her with more than a few kinks.

She always had a few knots, something she’d long learned to accept. With her body changing, she didn’t seem to slow down as she advanced through puberty. Her hips were already wider, forcing her to get her clothes tailored and let out every few months. Her legs, strong and long from jogging and climbing up trees in various parts of the world, ached from her morning of gathering choicer selections of Ox moss, the parasitic plant having flourished from the last few days of rain.

“At least I have stuff to trade in with Mr. Riley,” Vivian sighed, meandering through the field of glittering grass until she came upon a muddy path.

It led deeper into the forest and marshes by the Vreba River. The other way led straight into town, a lone bridge being the only landmark between her and the farmsteads outside of Hamlin. While the country had seen several years of war between the neighboring kingdom, Vreba had come to terms with its new sense of peace. The soldiers had returned home to their families, hanging up trophies and weapons to resume the civilian jobs they’d left behind.

The City State of Red Marshes had spent years trying to push into Vreba’s boundaries while under the rule of Rudolf II, a power-hungry dictator that had claimed large tracks of land from several neighboring kingdoms and fiefdoms, the meager militaries of the smaller countries being forced to yield land to the swollen monster of a country that was the State.

What had finally slowed Rudolf II down was his son; the young man had been injured to the point of being forced to rely on a cane to walk. The war monger had finally come to terms that his ways had provided enough support for his growing populace, setting up peace treaties with the lesser countries he’d been slowly conquering. His various sons had married into nobility, with the niece of the Herod III, the current Holy King of Vreba, married off to the Red Marshes oldest son.

Supposedly the two royals had taken to each other as oil did to water, forming a loveless marriage that was destined to bring several heirs into the world that would, hopefully, cement the family into something more.

“Love…” Vivian muttered, reaching up to lay a hand over the silver chain beneath her tunic. The carved piece of silver ore bore the symbol of love from the in the language of the Aqua Lord, the language of the water spirits.

It’d been her mothers, who had died giving birth to her. Her father was lost somewhere in the world, and after seventeen winters it didn’t seem likely that he was going to return. Her father’s friend, and her own Master, Morris Musk, had taken her in and raised her as his own. He never formally adopted her and kept her at arm’s length so that he could take her on as an apprentice without showing favoritism. She’d earned her keep being a servant in his household to pay for her tools and the materials she used in her experiments, allowing her to claim she served as a member of Master Musk’s staff as a vassal.

This kept the governor of the Hills of Tallow from pressuring Master Musk into taking a higher profile subject as an apprentice. He dreaded the nobility they forced him to rub elbows with as the official wizard of the Hills of Tallow, the constant politics leaving him perpetually on edge. Vivian often wondered what he would have done without her to act as his personal shield against the whiny nobles and their spoilt children.

Vivian hadn’t complained, seeing as it was through her Master’s good graces that she’d had room and board since birth. While they had selected her to be his apprentice. Not because of something he saw in her; no, she knew it was a trick to avoid a political pitfall of selecting one noblemen’s son or daughter over the others.

Stopping as she approached the long stone bridge spanning fifteen feet of fast-moving river waters, she rummaged through her bag for her iron-plated bell. Pulling it out, she rang it a few times nice and loud, until she heard pained cries coming from her side of the bridge, guttural yowls in a language that was harsh even to her experienced ears.

“I know you’re there!” Vivian called out, pulling on the Astral through her rings. “Are you going to let me pass freely or will I have to use the bell again?”

Slithering from the shadow beneath the bridge, a silt covered creature of mottled brown skin with long, muscled arms crawled into view. A shock of greasy black hair pulled back into a loose ponytail over a leathery, wart covered face. The creature was hideous to behold. An enormous mouth dominated the skull, with piggish eyes and large cat-like ears lying flat against his head. He only wore a faded set of tanned animal hides as a kilt, with a bandolier running over a broad chest from his right shoulder to his left hip, holding many implements made from bone and rock.

Trudging through the mud, the Silt Troll regarded Vivian for a few seconds, glaring at her with his pink eyes.

“Toll?” He spat, his voice rough and gravelly. He had a length of wood with several sharpened stones lashed to it with rough leather, to form a crude axe that was as large as Vivian was tall. The fifteen-foot troll held it with ease in one mammoth hand and stared at her through watery eyes.

“And why should I pay a toll when I paid you one this morning? Or have you forgotten the stew I brought you?” Vivian asked, holding up the bell threateningly. “I just want to pass with no trouble, and I know your brother is on the other side waiting for anyone else.”

“You cross my bridge, you pay toll!” He grunted, stamping his webbed foot into the muck of the riverbank. He brought the axe to bear, patting it in his massive hand as he waited.

“I don’t think so,” Vivian said, tucking her bell into her satchel before leaning on her staff. “Now let me pass or I’ll be forced to hurt you.”

The troll hissed, his wide mouth forming a deep frown. He, like all trolls, lived the simple life of collecting tolls for the various crossroads and bridges they made their home. They were lazy, and rarely cared to fight for the coin that they hoarded, preferring to intimidate people into giving up. They often went on hunting parties when they were close to starving, only to devour their catch raw to not have to be bothered to cook.

Vivian sighed, seeing how the troll was bracing itself for combat.

Guess I should scare it… she thought, snapping the fingers of her off-hand, the other tightening around her staff. Her hand glowed and her magic flared, swirling around her in a gust of wind.

Three orbs of pulsating air circled around her, drifting in a perpetual hover orbiting her chest, pulsing in tune with her heartbeat. The spell was weak, but trolls were dumb and easily cowed. The look on this one was, sadly, not what she expected.

The troll stepped up from the muddy bank, closing in on her while raising his axe. “You pay, either in coin or in blood!”

Vivian acted fast, snapping off an orb at the lumbering brute, the swirling air rocketing towards the weapon, snapping it in half in a shower of splinters. She spun in place, using her staff to strike another orb like one would a ball, sending it careening into the troll’s midsection, right above the kilt. His bandolier snapped from the force of the blow and his stomach cracked, a half-inch of caked mud falling in chipped pieces from the creature’s now exposed belly.

It bellowed in rage, discarding the remnants of its weapon to rush her, claws outstretched. Ready to grab Vivian and tear her in half.

She ducked under one of its slow swipes and smacked it in the exposed stomach with her staff, the semi-poisonous nature of her weapon already proving useful by the thin veins of red forming around the bruise that was rising beneath the thick skin. The troll kicked out, catching Vivian in the stomach and sending her toppling back in a heap with a cry of pain. Landing at the top of the embankment with her stomach screaming and her back feeling as if she’d fallen from a tree, she threw up her hands and funneled Astral energy through her rings, creating a weak wave of flames that spread out in a fiery arc, taking on the shapes of large moths that flew with unerring precision into the troll.

The troll quickly covered his face, but three of the fiery moths struck true; the scent of burning hair and charred flesh filled the air as the creature bellowed out in pain.

The remaining moths spattered at its feet, bursts of hot mud flying into the air. The troll and lashed out at Vivian, it’s right claw slashing down her front, slicing through her yellow undershirt and chest bindings while cutting deep into her upper stomach. Hooked talons proved themselves dangerous as the troll reared its claw back, taking with it a strip of bloody meat that tore a scream from Vivian’s throat.

Muttering a few words in the Air Prince’s tongue, she created a vortex of slicing winds around herself, allowing her a brief respite from the troll’s onslaught. As the beast slashed into the tornado, she channeled what limited earth spirit energy she’d mastered and ran her hand along her wound, closing it up from a bleeding gash exposing inner muscle to an angry scabbed-over wound.

“Not going to hold if I move too much,” she grumbled, wincing as she felt her vortex already faltering beneath the troll’s assault, its hands free of protective mud and covered in dozens of minute slashes oozing blood. “Spirits, he really must want that toll!”

Running through the list of spells she knew by heart, she prayed her next spell would work how she hoped, and began chanting the arcane words, focusing on the Astral flows around her. It would only take a few seconds, but she only had a few to spare. The winds were slowing down, now merely buffeting the troll’s advances instead of hurting it. The troll let out a war cry, pressing its advantage as it rained hammer blows into the dying storm.

Finally, feeling as if she had enough energy to make her gambit pay off, she waited until the troll had hammered with its clenched fists before pulling the residual energy of the vortex back into herself, making the monster stumble closer until it was a mere foot from her. In its momentary confusion and unbalance, Vivian thrust her hands up and unleashed a spray of inch long shards of ice in a flurry of angry howls.

The ice struck true and pierced the troll’s hide, countless darts stabbing through uncovered chest and stomach. Blood rained down on Vivian as the troll gurgled in pain. The troll’s chest and stomach became a ruined mass of bloodied meat that was rapidly freezing over with a thin sheen of frost.

“The ice spreads, so get in the water to have it melt before you starve for oxygen,” Vivian gasped, laughing as the troll growled. She whipped up a weaker vortex shield to hide behind, panting from the exertion of her spells. “W-well, what’s, huh, it going to be?”

The troll spared her a vile glare before turning and sloping back to the water, jumping in with a loud splash. Vivian heaved a sigh of relief before wincing. She raised a hand up to her stomach wound; the scabs having parted from her, throwing her arms up. Blood oozed from the wound.

“Curse it… Ukah won’t let me hear the end of this,” she muttered, reciting the incantation to once more seal the wound, this time closing it a little tighter.

Using her staff to push up from her position in the mud, she waved a hand over her chest binding and shirt, the shredded thread and linen stretched to knit back together. She couldn’t do anything about the bloodstains, as the troll was already looking hale enough to have another go at her, so she hurried across the bridge, wincing with every step, a smile on her face despite her injuries.