Free Morningstar by David Gemmell

village.
    By midafternoon we were joined by Jarek Mace, who came loping along the trail carrying his longbow. He joked with the others for a while, then dropped back to walk alongside me at the rear of the group.
    “You keep curious company,” he said softly.
    “What do you mean?”
    He smiled and tapped his nose.
    “You saw them?” I asked him.
    “Yes.”
    “You did not kill them, did you?”
    “You are a strange man, bard,” he answered. “The male could have killed you, Owen, and if any of the others had found the tracks as I did and known that you spoke to the creature, then they would have killed you. Why did you take the risk?”
    “I don’t know,” I told him honestly. “It just seemed … somehow sad. Here was a small family being hunted by armed men, and the male—the father—was ready to give up his life to protect his wife and child. I felt it would be wrong to kill them.”
    “They were only trolls,” he whispered.
    “I know. Why are they so hated?”
    “They talk,” he answered.
    “That makes no sense.”
    He shrugged and walked on in silence. I thought long and hard about the trolls, and I realized he was right. Man is the only animal capable of hate, and in the main he reserves his hatred for his fellow man. No one hates a bear or a lion; they might fear them for their power and ferocity, but they will not hate them. But the troll … Grotesque and powerful, yet withthe capacity for speech, he is the perfect target for all man’s resentments.
    It was a dispiriting thought as we trudged on along muddy trails.
    We camped by a swollen stream in a small hollow surrounded by beech trees. The night was cool, but there was little breeze and the camp fire gave a pleasant glow to the hollow. I sat with Wulf and Jarek Mace while the others slept.
    “The Angostins have gone,” said Jarek, “but they left behind an army of occupation under three generals. Ziraccu is being rebuilt, and they are allowing Ikenas to move north and settle there.”
    “Who cares?” responded Wulf. “As long as they stay away from the forest, I don’t give a good God damn.”
    “I don’t think they will stay clear,” Jarek told him. “Edmund has given the entire forest to the new count, Azrek. He was responsible for the sacking of Callen Castle and the murder of the nuns and priests at the monastery there. He is a greedy man by all accounts; he will want his taxes paid.”
    “We paid this year’s taxes to Leopold,” said Wulf.
    Jarek chuckled. “That will not concern Azrek.”
    “If there’s nothing to take, what can he do?” responded the hunchback.
    Jarek said nothing. Wrapping himself in his sheepskin cloak, he lay down beside the dying fire and closed his eyes.
    It was midmorning on the following day when we topped the last rise before the lake. Black smoke was billowing from the village, and we could see several buildings ablaze.
    Wulf and the other villagers ran down the slope, but Jarek Mace stood quietly on the brow of the hill, scanning the distant tree line. Swiftly he strung his longbow and notched an arrow to the string. Then he walked slowly down the hill, angling to the south. I followed him, dagger in hand.
    We found Ilka, the mute whore, hiding among the thick bushes at the foot of the hill. Her face was bruised, and an arrow was lodged in the muscles behind one shoulder blade. The wound was not deep, and it seemed the shaft had struck her at an oblique angle. Jarek broke the arrow but did not pull it clear. “It needs to be cut free,” he said. “If we drag it out, she could bleed to death.”
    The girl could hardly stand, and so I lifted her into my armsand carried her into the ruined village. Bodies were everywhere—women, old men, and children, scattered in death. Wulf was kneeling by his murdered family, cradling his yellow-haired daughter in his arms and weeping.
    Jarek Mace walked to Megan’s house. It was undamaged, and the old woman was sitting by her fire; she was